Biometric Vulnerability Assessment Service (BVAS)
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The Biometrics Institute is offering a new service to its members and other key stakeholders: The Biometrics Institute Biometric Vulnerability Assessment Service (BVAS).
A framework has been developed (refer below) to assess the vulnerabilities in a biometrics system and derive useful metrics for the likelihood of an attack succeeding. This likelihood depends on the type of attack, the particular technology being used, and the knowledge of the attacker. Based on this methodology we are now offering a Biometric Vulnerability Assessment Service (BVAS) for the following biometrics:
- Facial
- Fingerprint
- Voice
- Iris
This service addresses a market need by offering an independent assessment of the vulnerabilities of submitted biometric technologies. It will not undertake general overall performance assessments (FAR/FRR).
The aim of the BVAS is to allow those implementing biometric systems to understand which risks need to be mitigated and to provide developers with a target for improving vulnerability to attack.
Whilst this is important for all biometrics, we currently can test vulnerabilities for face and fingerprint biometrics and as of mid-2009 voice. Other biometrics will be considered later on.
The service has been designed to ensure that the evaluation is cost effective and leads to practical outputs that can be used as part of the risk analysis process for any system using biometrics. It is also hoped that it will spur developments in techniques and procedures that can be used to mitigate biometric vulnerabilities.
The existence of BVAS increases the integrity of biometric-based identity management systems, lessening the likelihood of successful imposter attacks on such systems. It also provides a mechanism for continuous improvement of biometric system vulnerability.
If you have any queries regarding this service, please email the Technical Committee at technical_committe(at)biometricsinstitute.org.
Further reading:
See the Mythbuster Video on Fingerprint Spoofing at: (or search www.youtube.com for 'mythbuster biometric')