This Thursday I'll be presenting "Attacking and Defending Biometric Access Control Systems" at the Ohio Information Security Forum.  This talk examines the security of biometric access control systems, primarily focusing on physical access control systems.  The first section of the talk explores the weaknesses in biometric access control systems and how these weaknesses can be exploited by an attacker. Previous literature on this topic had focused on spoofing biometric traits at the reader. This presentation goes a step further and provides a general methodology for assessing an entire biometrics system. This methodology can be applied to any biometrics system and outlines how to find common weaknesses in these systems. The second part of the talk focuses on how to defend these systems from attack. Real world examples and case studies are included.

Below is a diagram I use to illustrate the various attack points present in biometric access control systems.

Ohio Information Security Forum meetings are free and open to the public.  The meets are held at the Sinclair Learning Center in Dayton Ohio.  Directions to the meeting can be found here.

Cheers,

Matt