Security's next steps

Ultra-Scan is proffering one solution, a biometrics input device insensitive to challenges posed by dirt, grime, skin pigmentation, and oil on a finger, as well as a dirty scanning lens and platform after multiple uses. Ultra-Scan bounces sound waves off a finger and its ridges to record its "echo." To secure identification, that mapped reading is then authenticated against a profile.

"Unlike most scanning devices, [which read] a few times, we take that first image," says Dr. John Schneider, CTO and president of Amherst, N.Y.-based Ultra-Scan. Schneider foresees sonar biometric technology playing a definitive role in mission-critical, performance-verifiable applications for painless and immediate access control, such as health care or retail uses.

Existing biometric readers predominantly use three types of imaging technologies: optical, thermal, and capacitance, which measures the electrical charge of a finger. Vendors such as Identix, Visionics, and Digital Persona are all vying to push biometric acceptance to a skeptical marketplace.

Concerns about accuracy hinder the technology's acceptance but could be the key to its future, says Susan Scamurra, an administrator at the Buffalo Technology Transfer Center in Buffalo, N.Y. Scamurra's organization is researching the uses of biometrics in a patient-oriented fashion for hospital settings. It will soon begin testing them to make biometric recommendations for nearby health care facilities.

Scamurra deems Ultra-Scan's accuracy as "quite good" and notes that it may circumvent acceptance issues largely unexplored by many biometrics applications and products.

"If you understand what some of the major human factors are and work toward making something very usable and user-friendly and have it be accurate very quickly, you can get by a lot of the concerns people have of using these products," Scamurra says.

One challenge that continues to drive the security industry is how to combine human factors with new technology to plug the gaps that might leave information and systems vulnerable. As threats grow and change, pushing the envelope on security technology is also critical; users must keep on their toes to shore up defenses. The search continues for technology that will be more than just an evolution of what's already available -- a complete leap toward a new security approach.

"Real revolution is a very rare event. Development of PKI might be one. I don't think we're seeing -- or, really, seeing the need for -- any revolutions on the near horizon at this point," Gartner's Wagner says. "Our needs are relatively simple. Architecting solutions for them is where the difficulty is introduced."

Correction

In this article, Bob Gelfond's name was originally misspelled.