UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 05 SEPTEMBER 2014
With banks looking to introduce new technology which identifies customers through patterns of veins in their fingers, a computer security expert at Birmingham City University has welcomed the plans and suggested that cloud services should adopt a similar approach.
"Given the problems that have occurred with celebrity photographs this week, we're all aware that the traditional computers security mechanism of user name and password leaves a lot to be desired. It would be far better if cloud services followed the plans that banks have and identified users through their unique attributes," said Professor Mike Jackson from Birmingham City University’s Business School.
"The most well-known biometric method is fingerprint recognition which can be implemented very cheaply. It's reasonably accurate and fast, however, it's open to forgery and fingerprints can deteriorate over time.
"Finger vein technology is definitely the way forward as it can be quickly and accurately recognised. It's also resistant to forgery because veins are located inside the body rather than on the surface. Finger vein patterns even differ between identical twins and don’t alter as you get older."
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