{"id":75588,"date":"2015-03-03T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2021-08-24T13:20:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T17:20:47","slug":"new-authentication-fingerprints-how-you-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/new-authentication-fingerprints-how-you-move\/","title":{"rendered":"New Authentication ‘Fingerprints’ How You Move"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/a>We all know that passwords are hideous<\/strong> things. They take up to much time and are not that effective. In fact, Gartner<\/a> (IT<\/a>) says that password resets represent 30% of help desk calls<\/a>. Readers of Bach Seat<\/em><\/a> know that the most common hacked passwords<\/strong> change very little from year to year.<\/p>\n

\"remembering<\/a>Generating and remembering effective passwords is difficult and unnatural. A lot of us are awful at it and there’s almost no improvement in the list of most common passwords from year to year (as I most recently covered here<\/a><\/em>). Meanwhile, computers improve their ability to crack passwords by brute force and cunning every<\/em> year.<\/p>\n

So where there is chaos this is profit. A new area of research is to replace passwords with a users’ behavior<\/strong>. Mark Stockley<\/a> at Sophos\u2019<\/a> Naked Security <\/em>blog<\/a>, reports<\/a> that researchers at West Point<\/a> are working to get rid of passwords. The Cadets are working to produce a new identity verification system based on users’ behavior<\/strong>, described as a next-generation biometric capability. The research is being developed as part the active authentication program<\/a> run by DARPA<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Th\"next<\/a>e article explains that authentication<\/strong> has traditionally relied on users producing one or more of the following: something you know<\/em><\/strong> (such as a password or PIN), something you have<\/strong><\/em> (such as a number from an RSA key) or something you are<\/em><\/strong> (such as your fingerprints or face.) The technology that West Point is working on called, behavior-based biometrics<\/a>, adds another factor to the mix: something you do<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to DARPA the first phase of the active authentication program will focus on biometrics that can be captured through existing technology, such as analyzing how the user handles a mouse or how they craft the language in an email. The contract document, reported by Yahoo Finance<\/em><\/a>, describes the technology as a “cognitive fingerprint<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

\"cognitive<\/a>…when you interact with technology you do so in a pattern based on how your mind processes information, leaving behind a ‘cognitive fingerprint’<\/em><\/p>\n

Cognitive fingerprints will offer significant advantages over existing forms of authentication. According to Sophos<\/em>, the new technology has several advantages over passwords<\/strong> because they do not:<\/p>\n