Security chip technology

Citation

Rudall, B.H. (1998), "Security chip technology", Kybernetes, Vol. 27 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1998.06727daa.004

Security chip technology

Security chip technology

New technology will change the way in which individuals can identify themselves. Advances in security chip technology mean that systems can be produced which are capable, even remotely, of ensuring the identity of the individual who is requiring access to any secured domain whether it be a hotel room lock or a computer system. It will enable the ultimate smartcard to be produced and may solve the challenge of ensuring legitimate entry to secure computer systems and to certain areas of store, say the files on a hard disk. High among the potential applications of such a system is that it would enable the users of the Internet to verify transactions.

Siemens system used in smartcards

The Siemens security system, it is claimed, may well allow this verification. It is based on the fingerprint. Developments of fingerprint based systems are not new but efficient, accurate systems that, given 100 per cent security, are not easy to come by, as many potential developers have found.

This system is well advanced in its trials and will be incorporated in a smartcard that will be available in autumn 1998. The card will be similar to the standard credit card but will have a sensor about the size of a postage stamp built into it. This sensor will incorporate 65,000 points ­ the pixels of the image to be stored, which will model a fingerprint as they are depressed by a user's touch.

The system requires the user, on receipt of the card, to touch the sensor which will then read the pattern of the finger and store the fingerprint for future use. Whenever the card is then subsequently used a reader containing the designed software will check its database to compare and decide if the current user is, indeed, the valid owner of the card.

Software system

The new Siemens system contains software which the company says uses the same principles as those used in police fingerprinting recognition systems. This involves a process where rather than model every line on the fingerprint pattern the computer program searches for places where they begin and end. These points are called the munitial points and they are used worldwide as the basis for the storage and identification of fingerprints. In this system it is claimed that as long as 12 of these points can be read the program is able to identify a fingerprint.

Methods to defeat the fraudster

While searching for a better way of identifying an individual it is always recognised that whatever system is produced by a human it is also likely to be defeated by a human. Many security systems installed at great cost in computer systems have been broken by hackers.

In the case of security systems everyone has been looking for a better way of verifying the identity of the user. Nobody can mimic, the company says, a fingerprint, and you always carry your fingerprints around with you. It means that you do not have to memorise a security code or password, pocket a key, or remember your mother's maiden name ­ a favourite with so many credit card companies. Hence the great advantage of the fingerprint as a means of convenient identification. Advances in computer technology have provided the means of ensuring accurate and efficient verification.

The company Siemens was then faced with defeating the fraudster who already costs the credit card companies millions of pounds each year.

The most obvious fraud would involve the use of a finger which was not alive. To defeat this the card currently produced has a heat sensor that detects if the finger being scanned is alive. Unfortunately, a spokesman from the Siemens Security Chip Division, Munich, Germany, admits that, at present, the current prototype system can be fooled in the first hour after amputation.

The developers say, however, that they are working on technology that will check for blood flow through the finger and also to see if the skin is responding in the same way as it would if it were alive. The aim, the company says, is to make sure the smartcard is smart and impossible to trick. So far the fraudster has always found a way and during the coming year we will have the opportunity of monitoring the success of the new ID card.

New applications

Although the smartcard is the most obvious application for this technology there are other systems being developed including the "retina identification", image photographic recognition, voice recognition, etc., which may become more suitable for some applications. Currently, however, there are plans to produce computers that incorporate this technology. This would allow users to identify themselves quite easily to computing systems and could be extended to allow verification in a variety of electronic transmission applications. The Internet has already been cited by the developing company and any method of verifying Internet transactions would be particularly welcomed.

Its use in security applications to replace keys and passwords is inevitable, and its use will replace a number of conventional security systems. Applications in the automobile industry, where car keys would be dispensed with, are obvious targets for change.

In the immediate future, however, its use will be confined to credit cards, cash dispensers, in ticket offices and indeed in any transaction involving money where verification is a requirement.

Other applications are bound to follow and will not be delayed in a society that needs security for its goods, buildings and for its members. Security always implies verification and fingerprint security technology will, it is believed, produce the ultimate convenient and accurate system.