Forget Retinal Scans And Fingerprints, Brainprints Can Be The Future of Biometrics/security

Passwords sucks. At least, the way we handle them suck. From users creating weak passwords to hackers compromising them using simple social engineering, it’s just not a very reliable method of handling sensitive material. And while there is a wide range of biometrics currently in use, there’s still no certainty about which one will end up being the most prominent going forward. It could be fingerprints, retinal scans, or even Brainprints.

In a new study published in Neurocomputing, researchers from Binghamton University in New York demonstrated the viability of brain scans as a means of establishing an individual’s identity. It takes advantage of the variations an individual’s brain responds to the mention of specific acronyms, allowing it to be used for distinguishing one person from another.

Called Brainprint, the study observed the brain signals from 45 volunteers, who were read a list of 75 different acronyms. They focused, specifically, on the area of the brain associated with reading and recognizing words, recording the reactions from each volunteer for each individual acronym. Each of the results were fed to a computer system, which was able to identify the volunteers with a 94 percent accuracy – a number the researchers believe can be greatly improved with more work on the system.

According to the researchers, the proposed security solution offers a distinct advantage over biometrics in that it can be easily reset. When a fingerprint or a retinal scan are compromised, for instance, a user can’t exactly grow new fingers or new eyes, so it is compromised forever. With brain scans, they can simply do another scan, reading a different set of acronyms, to reset a person’s biometric record.

Study: Brainprints can potentially be used to replace passwords and retina scans

In a new study, titled 'Brainprint,' published in the academic journal Neurocomputing, researchers from Binghamton University in New York have suggested that the response of the human brain to certain words could potentially be used for replacing e-mail, bank account and social media passwords and retina scans.

The study contains the researchers' demonstration of the feasibility of relying on the way the brains reaction to certain words in place of traditional alphanumeric passwords as well as fingerprint and retina scanning.

As part of the study, the researchers observed the brain signals of 45 volunteers when a list of 75 acronyms - including FBI and DVD - were read out.

In particular, researchers recorded the brain's response to each group of letters, specifically focusing on that part of the brain which is linked with reading and recognition of words. The findings of the study showed that the brains of the participants reacted differently to each acronym. The differences in reactions were so distinct that a computer system could identify each volunteer with 94 percent accuracy.

With the results of the study revealing that brainwaves could be used by security systems for verification of a person's identity, the study's co-author Sarah Laszlo, brain biometrics are appealing because - unlike the 'non- cancellable' fingerprints - "brainprints.. are potentially cancellable. So, in the unlikely event that attackers were actually able to steal a brainprint from an authorized user, the authorized user could then 'reset' their brainprint."