Biometric Specific Threats

Synonyms

Attacks; Threats; Vulnerabilities

Definition

Spoofing is the use of an artifact containing a copy of the biometric characteristics of a legitimate enrolee to fool a biometric system. Examples include: gummy fingers, photograph of a face or iris pattern, artificial hand, etc., depending on the modality of the biometric characteristic.

Mimicry is imitating someone else’s behavior to fool a biometric system that uses human behavior rather than biology as a distinguishing characteristic. Examples include signature and voice recognition.

Disguise is concealing biometric characteristics to avoid recognition. It can apply to biological and behavioral characteristics and may or may not involve the use of artifacts.

Weak algorithms are biometric algorithms designed to work effectively with the normal range of human characteristics that may behave unpredictably when presented with highly abnormal input signals. This could produce much higher error rates than usual for these abnormal...