Expert Says, Not yet to “Are biometrics the response to a more secure online world?”: Yahoo Email Hack

Yahoo admitted that 500 million of its email accounts were compromised.

Ransomware attacks lock or cripple hospitals’ PC system networks unless they hand over a huge payout.

Actors and celebrities’ websites were hacked, or naked photographs stolen and spread on the web. What’s more, your antivirus programs aren’t taking care of the issue.

The flood of headlines reiterates the recurrence and seriousness of cyber-attacks worsening by the day, rather than better. Are the tools we’re using to keep our own data secure keeping up?

Innovative advances in efforts to establish safety are gradually picking up. Biometrics, particularly, has greatly developed in popularity. By scanning your fingerprint, retina, or even listening to your heartbeat, devices can distinguish you with information that is interesting just to you, and without the hassle of remembering and managing numerous passwords over many services.

Sprickerhoff mentions the chip-and-PIN payment methods available on credit cards as one example. Banks and credit card companies have bit-by-bit introduced them with their cards, yet the traditional payment methods are still available. You can even still use a chunky credit card imprinter, in case you’re feeling adventurous.

Some smartphones have fingerprint readers users can unlock with a swipe instead of a password. The most well-known is probably Apple’s Touch ID reader, which has been around since 2013. Microsoft PC owners can use Windows Hello, which can use either a fingerprint reader or a retina scan to unlock your computer. In both Microsoft and Apple’s cases, though, users aren’t being forced to migrate to biometric security. They can use traditional alphanumeric passwords like they always have. Biometrics is still developing in fame like unique mark and retina scanners, and presents new complexities that must be resolved before they are viewed as the new default.

Fingerprint readers have been around for a long time, yet in the event that your hands are harmed from a papercut or are exhausted on account of a labour-intensive job, Sprickerhoff says, not every reader will have the capacity to verify your fingerprint. It also brings up questions about accessibility to the disabled: People without fingers or hands, clearly, won’t be able to use a device that only unlocks with a fingerprint scanner.

“If you’re a bricklayer, you don’t really have fingerprints, so to speak,” he said.
“There’s no single biometric method that works for every person. So you have to make some accommodation for it,” said Sprickerhoff.

A few companies have considered this as they take off new security alternatives for their customers. MasterCard disclosed its Identity Check program in March, which permits you to open their smartphone app using facial recognition, earning it the nickname “selfie pay.”

Be that as it may, the innovation has a couple blind spots, particularly with regards to recognizing somebody wearing glasses or with identical twins. As a result of this, clients can transfer either a photograph of their face or their fingerprint data to check their ID. Meanwhile, Sprickerhoff encourages people to take in more about online security and how it affects their everyday lives, from banking to shopping to email, and practice their due diligence in a password-protected world.

Change your passwords often. Stay on constant alert against phishing scams. While you’re at it, consider covering your laptop’s webcam with some tape.

“You can’t go wrong with those old-school methods,” he says.