Getting Back To Business With Biometrics

People and passwords — in the long run, they just don't work very effectively together. Recently, a network password cracker was run as part of an enterprise security audit to see if employees were adhering to advanced password policies, and guess what… it found that they weren't.

Within 30 seconds, 80 percent of people's passwords were identified. Immediately, those same employees were asked to create strong passwords that adhered to the security requirements. A few days later, the password cracker was run again: This time, 70 percent were cracked.

The difficulty seems to be that employees are unable to maintain strong passwords, and those that did forgot them, so they would have to be reset.

The use of biometrics — the mathematical analysis of characteristics such as fingerprints, veins in irises and retinas, and voice patterns — as a way to authenticate users' identities has been a topic of discussion for years. Early commercial success stories have largely come from applying biometrics to projects with provable returns on investment: time and attendance, password reduction and reset, and physical access control.

Tensor have developed a low-cost biometric logon device which provides a competent alternative to reliance on a username and password system. Biometric fingerprint recognition devices can be connected to any PC or laptop, and provide the effective two-factor authentication process that virtually eliminates the possibility of an intruder hacking into your system.

The most mature applications of biometric technology are in systems that control physical access to facilities and keep records of time and attendance. Over the last few years Tensor has rolled out fingerprint-based network and systems across the UK. Incorporated into time and attendance, access control and visitor monitoring systems, the combination of biometrics with smart cards has taken the private sector by storm.

Even the public sector are getting on the bandwagon — Tensor's biometric prison visitor monitoring system has received unprecedented demand, and is now approaching 20 installations in prisons across the UK.

Fingerprint biometrics are largely used as part of an authentication process for providing personnel and associates with smart cards for physical and network access. With the Enterprise range of products suitable for implementation across multiple sites, Tensor provide a proprietary biometrics system that works over multiple bases.

If you are interested in finding out more about Tensor's biometric product range, don't hesitate to contact a member of our sales team who will be happy to provide information and advice.