Security News
He probably would have got away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids Interpol's Biometric Hub - a recently activated tool that uses French identity and biometrics vendor Idemia's technology to match people's biometric data against the multinational policing org's global fingerprint and facial recognition databases. Interpol introduced the Biometric Hub - aka BioHub - in October, and it is now available to law enforcement in all 196 member countries.
Homeland Security told to mind costs, fix up privacy controls Twice delayed and over budget, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been told by the Government Accountability Office...
"Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes," the company said. The social media behemoth told Bloomberg, which first reported the development, that the change is limited to premium users and that a biometric matching process "Will also help X fight impersonation attempts and make the platform more secure."
Not only are there ways around biometric authentication, but not all biometric methods are created equal. For optimal security it would be ideal for biometric systems to require a live biometric to be presented at each access point.
The journey towards digital transformation for organizations and governments has been fraught with difficulties, resulting in some users needing to catch up as more digital services are introduced. In this Help Net Security video, Jenn Markey, VP of Payments and Identities at Entrust, talks about how biometrics, hybrid solutions, and decentralized identity are transforming the industry and the future of identity verification.
As biometric face verification gains traction and becomes more widely adopted, threat actors are targeting all systems with sophisticated online attacks. To achieve both user friendliness and security, organizations need to evaluate their biometric solutions for resilience in the face of these complex attacks.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has sued Google for allegedly collecting and using biometric data belonging to millions of Texans without proper consent. The Texas AG says that Google allegedly used products and services like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max to collect a vast array of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry since 2015.
In the first half of 2022, BioCatch estimates fraudulent transfers to money mule accounts totaled $3 billion and that there are approximately 2 million mule accounts in the US. Additionally, researchers found that the average mule transaction amount is $1,500 - a low amount to avoid detection when executing mule campaigns at a large scale. In this Help Net Security video, Erin Englund, Threat Analytics Lead at BioCatch, explains what money mules are, why are they becoming so prevalent, and how we can defend against them.
The Unique Identification Authority of India has backtracked on advice about how best to secure the "Aadhaar" national identity cards that enable access to a range of government and financial serivces. Privacy concerns have also been raised over whether biometric data is properly secured stored and secured, if surveillance of individuals is made possible through Aadhaar, and and possible data mining of the schemes' massive data store.
UADAI arranges for collection of the biometrics needed to create an Aadhaar - ten fingerprints, two iris scans, and a facial photograph - through enrollment agencies and registrars and provides authentication-as-a-service using Aadhaar numbers. More than a billion Aadhaar IDs have been issued and over 99 per cent of India adults have enrolled in the scheme.