Sapphire MatchLogon integrates fingerPIN into PC/Network logon software new alternative to Chip and PIN payment technology
fingerPIN Ltd has today announced the launch of the fingerPIN, a biometric fingerprinting technology that increases the complexity of penetrating fingerprint based security methods. The fingerPIN authenticates identity on two levels: the uniqueness of the users' fingerprints and the privacy of the sequence.
Through the fingerPIN the risk of someone fraudulently logging on or accessing a secure area using a third person's fingerprint data are reduced from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 10 billion due to the difficulty of cracking a combination of several unique fingerprints used in a specific sequence. The fingerPIN provides this enhanced level of security through a simple software upgrade to existing fingerprint readers and by storing fingerprints as an encrypted digital pattern. fingerPIN has also announced that MatchLogon is the first company to integrate fingerPIN into its successful PC/Network logon software.
With any fingerprint system, a user will never present exactly the same image to the scanner. There will always be subtle variations, (for instance, dirt, cuts, faulty scanner). Systems match on the basis of confidence intervals, i.e. a fingerprint is 95% similar to the one in the database. When a single fingerprint is presented, that interval needs to be very high, to ensure that other people cannot login as an authorised user. With fingerPIN, as multiple fingerprints are used in a sequence, the interval for each fingerprint is reduced. As long as a user knows the sequence in which the fingerprints were input, it massively reduces the chances of letting a non-authorised user log in.
The fingerPIN represents a major shift in biometric fingerprinting technology. Several fingerprints in sequence are more secure than one, and fingerPIN helps to eliminate the threat from fingerprint lifting: a phenomenon which allows criminals to copy and readily use available fingerprint data to gain access to secure areas, PCs and laptops. The fingerPIN also dispenses with usernames, 'weak' or similar passwords, cards, tokens, keys and fobs, so leaving nothing to carry or loose.
MatchLogon specializes in supplying alternatives for standard Windows password-based authentication technologies and replaces them with fingerprints, USB tokens or smartcards. MatchLogon is a ready to use product, which provides a solution to challenges such as remote logon to the corporate network-using dial up session or VPN and building a single sign on environment. By implementing fingerPIN, MatchLogon users can bypass username and ID input through simply inputting their fingerprints in sequence. The new fingerPIN concept will dramatically enhance security, while reducing administrator time lost on resetting passwords and improving manageability of passwords.
"The fingerPIN is changing the biometric fingerprinting landscape as we know it," says Muazam Sarfaraz, Managing Director of fingerPIN. "We have developed a technology that is far ahead of existing biometric methods, cards and Chip & PIN. In addition to the inherent and immediate benefits to corporate organizations of any scale, the fingerPIN is equally effective in addressing networking security needs of individual consumers, and SMEs".
Developed by a team headed by Dr Ian Cresswell, the fingerPIN is a proprietary technology which is not only targeted at PC/network and retail sectors, but at a number of additional sectors including banks, education, health, law enforcement, security specialists, defence and government.
fingerPIN will be available to enterprises and consumers during November 2006, through distributors in the UK, US and Germany.
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