Biometric Technology Stomps Identity Theft

The yearly cyber crime cost in the United States is over 300 million and rising. As always, the crucial security mission is access control to systems and key installations to keep out intruders and identity thieves. However, with the rise of identity theft it has become more difficult to prevent unauthorized access to information resources and installations. Methods of positively verifying and authenticating people may mitigate the current identity theft crisis. Biometric technologies--applications that use the physiological and behavioral attributes of a living person for the purpose of positively verifying the identity--may be the answer. Until now biometric technology products were crude resulting in high error rates of authentication and verification. Because of recent advances in computer science, biometric technology products (BTPs) have become more reliable and less expensive to own. With a BTP--such as an iris analyzer--a living person's identity can be positively authenticated and verified making it difficult for imposters to access resources by stealing someone else's identity. This paper discusses the benefits of implementing a biometric technology product--one more tool for safeguarding the information assets and key installations of an organization.