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From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: When will they ever learn...
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2024 01:22:47 -0700
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On 11/25/2024 1:05 AM, Jeff Layman wrote:
> On 25/11/2024 02:32, Don Y wrote:
>> <https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805194/suprema-biostar-2-security-system-hack-breach-biometric-info-personal-data>
>>
>> "Dear Mr X.,
>>      Due to a recent cyber incident, here, the login credentials 
>> (authentication)
>> on your account need to be updated.  Could you please use a DIFFERENT finger,
>> in the future?  If you have already used all of them, may we suggest TOES?"
> 
> That webpage article is more than 5 years old.

Yes.  The fact that folks are still pursuing biometric authentication
it the point.

> Biometric security is still an issue. For example:
> <https://bluegoatcyber.com/blog/biometric-security-and-the-gummy-bear-attack/>

It's not the (spoofable) security that I was alluding to in my fictitious
message, above.

Rather, the fact that the user can't disavow a biometric sample.

I can CHANGE a password.  I can't change my fingerprints, retina scan,
voice print, face, etc.

So, once one of these is compromised, it is no longer usable.
How many OTHER biometric signatures can you present?  E.g., if
"left thumbprint" is compromised (to access system X), then you move
on to "right thumbprint" (for example).

But, if right thumbprint has been compromised at some other system (Y),
it, too, is suspect.  So, you move on to left index finger...

Eventually, you run out of signatures to use to uniquely identify yourself!

Imagine the ultimate authenticator:  your DNA.  Once someone can compromise
that, then what do you do -- become someone else?  :>

I.e., the folks in that database leak/theft have permanently lost the
ability to use those biometric data as authenticators.  Additionally,
as they likely have identities tied to them (in the database), anyone
who presents one of those authenticators knows WHO has access to the
system in question.

If my password is sdkfjwperu, then the fact that sdkfjwperu works as an
authenticator on system X doesn't imply that *I* am a user of system X;
only that <user_identifier> happens to be.

Biometrics are a shortcut that is mostly downside with only short-term
upside potential.