Thursday, October 20, 2016

Identity & Access Management - Insecure Thoughts

The idea of using brain waves as a biometric authentication is intriguing so even though I do not have a vast knowledge of the intricacies of security I thought I would check out this session and hopefully learn something cool.  I was not disappointed.  Amanda Danko also began the talk letting us all know that she is not a security professional so that made me feel less intimidated.  Danko introduced the topics of what biometrics are and gave a little science lesson on brain waves as well.  I don't often have a chance to see a diagram of a brain.  Did you know you can measure the signals produced by myelin sheaths without an invasive procedure? As soon as she started talking about devices worn on the head I was immediately distracted thinking of Are you the gatekeeper?.

So there are actual devices that you can wear (over your pre-frontal cortex) in public without people thinking you are insane.  Danko has researched how people's brainwaves respond to images and if that can uniquely identify an individual using various devices.  She always evaluated the data to see how feasible it is to use these patterns to authenticate and impersonate.  The results are very promising that brainwaves can be used in combination with other authentication methods for security.

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