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Biometrics for Network Security (Prentice Hall Series in Computer Networking and Distributed Systems) | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Reid
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Category: Book
List Price: $44.99
Buy New: $15.99
You Save: $29.00 (64%)
New (11) Used (7) from $13.34
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 301478
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7 x 0.7
ISBN: 0131015494
Dewey Decimal Number: 005
UPC: 076092022084
EAN: 9780131015494
ASIN: 0131015494
Publication Date: December 30, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SHIPS FAST! via UPS(AK/HI Priority Mail) within 24 hours/ NEW book
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The biggest vulnerability in most enterprise networks is the authenticationsystem--especially if it relies solely on passwords. And a result, many companiesare looking to combine password authentication with other authenticationmethods, most especially biometrics. The few biometrics books that do existare overview books aimed at management and/or are not written by biometricspecialists. This book is unique in its coverage of how to design and implementa successful biometric solution for your network--and, it's written by abiometrics expert.Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing a person based on aphysiological or behavioral characteristic. Among the features measured are;face, fingerprints, hand geometry, handwriting, iris, retinal, and voice.Biometric technologies are becoming the foundation of an extensive array ofhighly secure identification and personal verification solutions. As the level ofsecurity breaches and transaction fraud increases, the need for highly secureidentification and personal verification technologies is becoming apparent.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very informative and precise. Ideal for Security Engineers & Administrators. September 18, 2007
Network security has become the latter-day equivalent of oxymoronic terms like "jumbo shrimp" and "exact estimate."
Newspaper headlines are routinely peppered with incidents of hackers thwarting the security put forth by the government and the private sector.
As with any new technology, the next evolution of network security has long languished in the realm of science fiction and spy novels. It is now ready to step into the reality of practical application.
In Biometrics for Network Security , biometrics security expert Paul Reid covers a variety of biometric options, ranging from fingerprint identification to voice verification to hand, face, and eye scanning. Approaching the subject from a practitioner's point of view, Reid describes guidelines, applications, and procedures for implementing biometric solutions for your network security systems.
Coverage includes:
- An introduction to authentication technologies and biometrics
- Dealing with privacy issues
- Biometric technologies, including finger, hand geometry, handwriting, iris, retina, voice, and face
- Security concerns related to biometrics, including attempts to spoof or fake results
- Deployment of biometric security systems, including vendor selection and roll out procedures
- Real-life case studies
For security, system, and network administrators and managers, as well as anyone who is interested in the application of cutting-edge biometric technology, Biometrics for Network Security will prove an indispensable addition to your library!
Good review of biometrics and helpful advice for deployment March 21, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very good and readable book about biometrics for network security. Note the network security part - the coverage is limited to systems that can be used in an everyday business environment. The book could be read by just about anyone, although it does help knowing a little bit about biometrics to start with. There are basically two main parts - the first one describes the different biometric technologies and their strengths and weaknesses. The second part discusses actual testing and deployment using real life examples of what to do and what not to do. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who is actually going to implement a biometric system. Just knowing how the biometrics work is not enough to have a successful deployment. If you want to know the full details of how different biometric algorithms work, this book is probably not for you. The level of detail is just what you would take away from reading the detailed description, which I actually liked. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in network security.
A very good book with a lot of information. September 17, 2004
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is meant for just about anyone who has any interest in biometric security. The geek speak is minimal and the examples are those which just about anyone with network experience can understand. In essence, it's meant to be read by anyone from the network administrator to the CIO.
Each chapter deals quite well with the various biometrics including the options by which each biometric can be measured, the types of variances that can be expected, how each biometric can be spoofed, and how spoofing can be thwarted. I'm not going to go into any great detail on them because that's the purpose of the book, but I found it fascinating to learn how many different kinds of authentication can be done. Facial biometrics alone have three different authentication methods from which to choose!
The book also goes into the statistics of using biometrics and how to determine various acceptance and rejection rates as well as accuracy rates. This section is clearly for the mathematically adept, but it was an interesting read - for me anyway.
The last several chapters of the book deal with the preparation and roll-out of a biometric security model - defining the business need, developing a proof of concept, inviting vendors, preparing proof-of-concept, rolling out the pilot project, and finally rolling out the project itself. For anyone with management experience or anyone who is familiar with project planning, these sections are for the most part a reiteration of common sense; however, for someone who has never performed to extravagant a project these chapters are a good foundation.
This book is not light reading, but it doesn't require a Masters degree to understand either. It's a good balance of technical information and real-world examples and usage. Fortunately, the author avoided the I'm trying to impress you language that too many other technical authors attempt to employ in order to increase their self-esteem.
There are a few things about this book, however, that made it difficult at times for me to read without rolling my eyes.
One is the section about return on investment. When it comes to network security, you really cannot place a dollar value on security; and associating "investment" with "security" is truly a misnomer.
"Security" is an insurance policy meant to prevent loss, whereas "investment" is meant to gain wealth. With security, you pay for it even when you don't need it for no reason other than having it there for the unlikely time when you do need it. That is an expense, not an investment. I had a very difficult time accepting the author's comparison between why one type of security had a higher ROI than other.
What really irritated me about this book, however, is the author's continual pushing throughout the book of user right to privacy and user acceptance of a security system.
Being the employee of a company is a privilege, not a right. When you voluntarily accept employment by a company, you are bound by their rules and their regulations. I found it somewhat arrogant of the author to push user acceptance and user rights to privacy as a strong consideration of whether or not a particular security measure should be implemented.
Yes, efficiencies need to be taken into account. The security method must be efficient, effective, and provide the adequate amount of security. If the security is too cumbersome to be effective or if the security is simple but doesn't provide the security that other methods provide, then the security plan should be rethought.
However, a user's right to privacy and acceptance of a security method are non sequitur. The employee has only those rights that the employer gives to him as per the terms of hire and continued employment. The employer is within his rights to alter or remove all rights to privacy as is necessary to protect the company.
Overall, however, the book is quite good. A security method that does what it's supposed to do is priceless. You can't put a value on it. But if you're looking to harden your network, you could do a lot worse than lay down the money for this book, just as long as you recognize that you are responsible for implementing network security as you - not griping employees - see fit.
The barriers to effective implementation of biometrics February 6, 2004
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Even though I am well aware of the problems of "simple" passwords, quite frankly I have no choice but to use them. Like nearly everyone else, keeping even a small number of strong passwords in my mind is close to impossible and I rarely remember them. Most people in this situation write them down and place them near their terminal, effectively rendering the strong password weaker than the simple one. Since the lack of an appropriate password ceases your activity on that system, it is a case where the cure of strong passwords is probably worse than the disease. The best solution is to have a single sign-on system, where one data point is used to grant access to all computer systems.
In this environment, the use of a biometric, or unique characteristic of our bodies as a logon authentication mechanism is very attractive. Clearly, it is most unlikely, although not completely impossible, for anyone to be without a particular biometric. Furthermore, in certain circumstances, our society is comfortable with using biometrics as an identifier. The fingerprint has been accepted as evidence in a court of law for decades and DNA is regularly used to overturn convictions and set the innocent free. While biometrics is not yet a mature technology, the purpose of this book is to examine the current state of the art, describe how they can be used and the weaknesses still present in the technology.
There are some problems with the use of biometrics, some are technical, others are social and some are biological. In this book, the biometrics most commonly considered for authentication are examined and the problems detailed. The biometrics covered are fingerprints, face recognition, voice analysis and blood vessel patterns in the iris of the eye. Face recognition and voice analysis are the two most susceptible to biological changes. People age, some faster than others and as that happens, their face changes, sometimes rapidly and dramatically. There are some people whose face changes a great deal even from day to day depending on how much sleep they got the night before. We have all experienced a situation where we meet someone we have not seen for a few years and do not recognize them. Temporary illness can also alter a voice, rendering the voice recognition mechanism ineffective. These situations of a false negative would be difficult to avoid, unless the authentication data is periodically updated.
Fingerprints and patterns in the iris are the most permanent. However, they also have their problems. To get a precise fingerprint, the hand has to be very steady and most people in the United States equate the taking of fingerprints with a trip to the police station. This is a significant social barrier that will delay the implementation of any general identification system. Scanning the patterns of the iris requires close proximity to the sensor and it is necessary for a light to be focused on the eye. Many people are made uncomfortable with the light shining in their eyes and it generates fear of potential eye damage. The sections describing the problems with the current state of biometric recognition technology should be read by anyone pondering the implementation of such a system.
However, even if all of the social and biological barriers can be overcome, it still may be possible to spoof the recognition devices. Each chapter that describes a biometric has a section on how to fool the sensor. While some of it reads like to modern spy novel, in many cases no sophisticated technology was needed to perform the spoof. In the case of face recognition, simply taking a high quality digital picture may be all that is needed to get data that will be accepted by the face scanner. High quality digital recordings of your voice may also be enough to fool a voice recognition system. Fingerprints and iris patterns are harder to spoof, but we touch many surfaces during the day, and some keep fingerprints very well.
In the final analysis with biometrics, it comes down to what levels of false positives and false negatives are considered acceptable. These two must both be part of the analysis, as clearly a false positive will let a malicious entity in and if there are too many false negatives then legitimate users will be denied access and productivity will drop. There is a chapter on statistics where many of the critical questions concerning these areas are examined.
The book closes with a chapter detailing a scenario where a biometric system is implemented at a large company. Every step of process, from the proof of concept to the final rollout are examined. The emphasis is on dealing with the internal political and social conditions, as clearly that will be a significant barrier everywhere except in places such as the military.
Authentication methods based on biometrics are attractive, in that they apparently can be used to solve some of the most difficult problems in limiting access to secure systems. However, there are still many problems to be overcome and in this book you learn what those problems are. With that information, you will be able to make a reasoned decision whether such a system is appropriate for your business.
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