Like in the movies!
When cigar cutters are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigar cutters.
A Polish bank has become the first in Europe to offer the use of biometrics instead of PINs at cash machines. Customers of BPS visiting one of its ATM in Warsaw have the option of using placing their fingerprints on readers, instead inputting a four digit code, to authorise withdrawals or other transactions following the …
I don't think that severing a finger would work as the machine is looking for veins in the finger, which will be different if there is no blood.... either that or they will have to hook up an artificial heart to the finger... hmm business opportunity me things, <slogan>cheap artificial hearts for all your bank robbing needs</slogan>
And we're right back to MythBusters episode 59. Where a moistened photocopy of a fingerprint was sufficient to beat a top-end biometric lock. Fingerprints are good and useful to ELIMINATE "false positives" like someone skimming your PIN, but I wouldn't consider them sufficient to authenticate all by themselves.
ac wrote: "the biometric reader may rely on blood flow or pressure in order to "read" the finger's vein pattern. Once the finger is severed, won't the veins collapse thereby rendering the finger useless?"
Easily reanimated with a syringe of liquid, just apply at approximately one second intervals to simulate a pulse, that's all it will be looking for.
Maybe it's time for a severed thumb icon.
It's the *vein* pattern below the surface of the fingerprint that is being "read"
Having said that these ATM's are in Eastern Europe.
So the firmware has *already* probably been fixed to dump the pattern *along* with the PIN.
Handy hint. Don't trust *any* ATM's in the former Eastern Block. Travellers cheques, bureu de change until *demonstrated* safe.
>>Jagielski said the technology would help guard against losses from scams such as ATM skimming while making it easier for pensioners to withdraw state payments<<
Q: How will this make it easier for pensioners?
A: Becuase they won't have to remember 4 digits - just the one.
If all Polish pensioners are that senile, you think they'll remember to take their card with them? Let alone recall where they bank? Or what town they live in....
And so on.
If they're going to chop your finger off to get your money from an ATM (Max £250 a day?) then I suspect that you'd probably willingly give them your pin number first over having a finger chopped off in any case...and it's not a regular case you here on the news that.
The real problem is as mention by Peter, will people be able to pick your fingerprints up in other ways....
Same problem as with any biometric identification: Fails the simple test of ``hard to forge, easy to replace''. I have no idea how hard it is to fool scanners that look for veins, but since it's likely this was also developed for function first and security maybe later, it'll be breakable, no sweat. But fingers replaceable? Not so much.
And then there's this: I recall reading about the TNO, the Dutch tester of Stuff like TUEV is for Germany, where they had two guys testing pushbike locks. The Netherlands, bikes, etc.? Turns out that the best lock lasted thirty seconds. The worst? Well, locks you can open with a wooden match while drunk can't be very good. Which just goes to show that even in pushbike central the lock manufacturers don't manage very solid locks, and that's been their core business for decades. This here biometric stuff is a relatively new field, adding all the growing up aches pains and illnesses that implies on top.
So, I don't think this'll be necessairily better than PIN codes. If I'd had my way I'd replace my PIN with eight digits and spend a good while memorising it. But that's me, and I don't live in a country where banks let you do that. Even the mere possibility of some customers having a longer PIN would improve the security for all. What's happening here is that they're running away from a needlessly dumbed down, resticted, and therefore less secure option, choosing to replace it entirely with untested new technology over improving what can be improved by simple virtue of removing artificial security impediments.
The more I see them bumble, the more I'm convinced that bankers have no sense of reality, and moreover the piles of cash they sit on somehow don't allow them to buy it either.
"I don't think this'll be necessairily better than PIN codes. If I'd had my way I'd replace my PIN with eight digits and spend a good while memorising it. But that's me, and I don't live in a country where banks let you do that. Even the mere possibility of some customers having a longer PIN would improve the security for all." Bollocks there are only 10,000 4 digit pins in the world, so thousands of people have the same pin. But that doesn't matter. Its not a unique identifier and was never meant to be. Your finger though...........Now that IS unique to you :).
Why is the article referring to 'Europe' and 'Japan'? I know they're desperately trying but Europe isn't a country yet. It seems that in 'Europe' whenever anything happens in just one european country it's always referred to as 'Europe'. So... consistency please. If you want to say 'Europe', then don't say Japan, but 'Asia'.
Goodness. Next we'll have a European flag and our own anthem. ... no wait.
Biometrics are bad when implemented on their own. Two people can have similar fingerprints, veins, or whatever. If someone looses a finger due to natural causes, it doens't work anymore. Researchers have already defeated "fingerprint" readers with trivial means. How long until someone figures out a way to clone the pattern of veins?
Better yet, require a fingerprint *and* passcode. Something you have to know, and something you have to posses. The strengths of one offset the weakness of the other.
Even plod are a bit wary of fingerprinting as a form of unique identification, so why do the banks think it's a good idea?
It simply isn't good enough. One of our managers got a funky and horribly expensive laptop with fingerprint recognition recently. The helpdesk manager managed to successfully login using his own finger. With that sort of false positive rate I wouldn't want to trust my cash to the technology.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8677140.stm
The theft of a laptop containing unencrypted medical records including retinal scans will come in very useful for breaking any security system relying on that biometric which those patients may have to use. What exactly can you do once your eyes are permanently compromised?
The co-op trialled fingerprints for payment in their shops in Oxford a few years back. These trials happen every so-often and a quietly dropped when they don't deliver.
For what it's worth, major banks aren't going to go with this sort of technology any time soon (if at all). It's flakey, unreliable (PIN is five nines, no biometric gets close) it requires staying with PIN for all the systems that don't, won't or can't be changed worldwide. It's been hard enough getting America to go chip and pin (there are now a couple of places that accept it, I believe) there is no way most countries would accept biometric id.
I would suggest it's a small bank trying a gimick to get noticed (I seem to recall the article said 200ish ATMs). Nothing to see here, move along, etc...
Authenticating at the well-protected ATM is not a problem. A memorable PIN is not perfect, but it works reasonably well in this setting. Forcing biometrics authentication at the ATM is to solve a problem that doesn't exist in the first place and will only complicate the matter. A gummy-finger is an inherent threat as people will always left some (partial) fingerprint on the fingerprint reader.
If coercion by a gangster is a threat that this solution wants to address, I would be ready to give up my PIN rather than have my fingerprint chopped off...