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In this issue...
  • Feature Article: Biometrics in Signatures
  • Life Sciences Feature: Can We Have a Show of Hands?
  • Spotlight: Questions & Answers: Biometric Technologies
  • Spotlight: Know Thy Users
  • Life Sciences Spotlight : IBM, Daon Offer Clinical Trials Better Data Security
  • KEY Definitions: Terms of the Month
    • Feature Article :.

    Biometrics in Signatures

    By Oliver Tattan, Daon CEO, Loss Prevention & Security Journal

    Employees have been playing the secret password game for years and, unfortunately, enterprises across a wide variety of industries have been paying the price. With stolen or borrowed passwords leading to most of today's enterprise security scams, companies of all sizes have begun migrating to biometrics or e-signatures to authenticate the login process and protect their data. Unlike passwords, the use of biometric e-signatures brings an added security layer to the enterprise that cannot be interchangeable or shared with fellow employees.

    As companies continue to rely on e-mail and e-documents to communicate to the world, the potential for network intrusion also increases. Although the growing dependence on virtual communication eliminates paper-based correspondence and enables organizations to do business with just about anyone with a modem, the need for biometric e-signatures becomes essential across the financial, travel/transport, public sector and pharmaceutical markets.

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    http://www.losspreventionjournal.com/articles/321bio.html
    Life Sciences Feature:.

    Biometrics: Can We Have a Show of Hands?

    By Bill Briggs, Senior Editor, Health Data Managment

    Biometrics technology could resolve many security and access obstacles. But first, cost, reliability and intrusion issues must be addressed.

    It’s 5:30 a.m. and Dr. Jones glances at a monitor as he drives into the gated parking lot. He parks, locks his car, then walks into the hospital. He stops at the first nurse’s station along the way and says “Good Morning” to a computer monitor. The monitor replies, “Good Morning, Dr. Jones,” and instantly lights up with a list of his patients in the facility and their latest medications and test results.

    Did you spot the security and authentication measures in place? The only obvious devices were the gate and the car’s locks. Everything else happened in the background. A laser beam scanned the doctor’s face as he drove into the parking lot. A similar device scanned his body and the way he walks as he entered the hospital and voice recognition software “knew” his voice. All the devices combined to identify, authenticate and grant information system access to the physician.

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    http://www.healthdatamanagement.com

    Spotlight:.

    Questions & Answers: Biometric Technologies

    By Matthew Kovar, ZDNet TechUpdate

    Question
    How are biometric technologies being deployed, and how likely are they to be deployed in the future?

    Answer
    Biometric technology has been deployed for a number of reasons, including physical access control, protection from identity stealing, strong authentication for application access, secure check cashing (this technology can compare a user’s face against a database), voice-activated transactions and access to PDAs and other mobile devices and platforms. These applications use biometrics to provide uncompromising authentication.

    Biometrics will increasingly be deployed to meet the requirements of personal privacy legislation under GLB in financial services and HIPAA in health care. Facial recognition viewing systems will be employed to identify criminals and will certainly be deployed as part of the homeland security initiatives.

    Question
    What are the benefits and successes of biometric technologies?

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    http://techupdate.zdnet.com
    Spotlight:.


    Know Thy Users

    By Deborah Radcliff, Computerworld

    You've got thousands of employees tapping into a dozen internal enterprise applications apiece, a growing base of external business partners and a slew of customers visiting your new portal. You need to give this fluid population the right channel for reaching their authorized resources. You need an identity management system.

    An identification management system will help stem a flood of user-access complaints and serve as an essential bulwark to your security system. If you don't have one, build one. But build it right the first time by addressing your most pressing needs now, with an eye toward adding features in the future. There are proven ways to do this, so don't be the poor soul who doesn't get it right the first time.

    "I was talking to a client the other day who was developing a very customized proprietary [identity management] solution that didn't leverage standards," says Roberta Witty, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "The application was very questionable from an infrastructure perspective. You have to ask, Who's liable in that case?"

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    http://www.computerworld.com

    Life Sciences Spotlight:.

    IBM, Daon Offer Clinical Trials Better Data Security

    Biometric devices compliant with FDA regulations could help prevent typical lapses

    By Mark D. Uehling, Bio-IT World

    Are clinical data clean? Certainly not.

    In a recent survey of 20 clinical trials professionals in the United States and Europe, Adelphi Research learned that four researchers shared their passwords. Another six thought that swapping of personal identification numbers and passwords was commonplace at their institution. Such a carefree approach to clinical data poses scientific and regulatory problems.

    With the health of millions of patients on the line, the FDA has legitimate concerns about whether a doctor actually initialized the electronic version of a particular medical report — or if it was, say, a janitor.

    Click Here to Read More - http://www.bio-itworld.com
    KEY Definitions:.

    >From www.techweb.com/encyclopedia

    Biometrics
    The biological identification of a person, which includes characteristics of structure and of action such as iris and retinal patterns, hand geometry, fingerprints, voice responses to challenges and the dynamics of hand-written signatures. Biometrics are a more secure form of authentication than typing passwords or even using smart cards, which can be stolen; however, some forms have relatively high failure rates. Biometric authentication is often a secondary mechanism in two-factor authentication.

    Authentication
    Verifying the identity of a user who is logging onto a computer system or verifying the origin of a transmitted message. Authentication depends on four classes of data, generally summarized as "what you know," "what you have," "what you are" and "what you do."

    Digital Signature
    A digital guarantee that a file has not been altered, as if it were carried in an electronically sealed envelope. The "signature" is an encrypted digest (one-way hash function) of the text message, executable or other file. The recipient decrypts the digest that was sent and also recomputes the digest from the received file. If the digests match, the file is proved intact and tamper free from the sender.

    A digital signature ensures that the file originated with the entity signing it and that it was not tampered with after the signature was applied. However, the sender could still be an impersonator and not who it claims to be. To verify that the message was indeed sent by the person or organization claiming to send it requires a digital certificate (digital ID) which is issued by a certification authority.

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