Comment Passwords (Score 2, Interesting) 188
I've deployed many different types of authentication. Before you get too involved selecting technology here what you need to do:
1. Do a risk analysis: Categorize your risk to high, medium and low using business risk, security risk and information risk
2. In an enterprise setting, you then need to deploy some type of single sign on package. In the package you then need to create a set of authentication strengths. Things like passwords and proximity badges are for low risk applications (the reason being they are easily bypassed, thwarted, obtained through fraudulent means etc). For medium risk you should then use something like a uid/password coupled with a digital certificate or SecureID token. For high risk, you should use something like a biometric plus a digital cert plus a uid/password.
3. Even with these methods, your enterprise security can be broken. Therefore, in order to protect your enterprise crown jewels, you should also deploy something called transaction authentication. Even if you log on using the strong authentication successfully, the authentication transaction software checks the hardware configuration of your computer, the ip address, you geolocation, time of day and historical user profile to validate that you are who you are purporting to be.
In your warehouse, a proximity badge will perform best. Users just have to be in close proximity to the reader. HOWEVER, be warned that this is not a secure level of authentication since the badge can be carried by someone other than the person you issued it to. Therefore, for those applications in the warehouse that are higher risk, you should try and segregate them to stronger authentication.
Another choice in a warehouse scenario is to use voice authentication. This can be relatively cheaply deployed. It has some good performance specs relative to biometric authentication.
On my website, www.authenticationworld.com, I have referenced the performance of different biometrics.
Be warned however that the use of biometrics has drawbacks:
1. Some of them can be fudged depending on the technology you purchase
2. There are a lot of false positives with some of the biometrics
3. They can be expensive to deploy.
I have lots of resources on different authentication mechanisms on my website as well as a blog on authentication.
1. Do a risk analysis: Categorize your risk to high, medium and low using business risk, security risk and information risk
2. In an enterprise setting, you then need to deploy some type of single sign on package. In the package you then need to create a set of authentication strengths. Things like passwords and proximity badges are for low risk applications (the reason being they are easily bypassed, thwarted, obtained through fraudulent means etc). For medium risk you should then use something like a uid/password coupled with a digital certificate or SecureID token. For high risk, you should use something like a biometric plus a digital cert plus a uid/password.
3. Even with these methods, your enterprise security can be broken. Therefore, in order to protect your enterprise crown jewels, you should also deploy something called transaction authentication. Even if you log on using the strong authentication successfully, the authentication transaction software checks the hardware configuration of your computer, the ip address, you geolocation, time of day and historical user profile to validate that you are who you are purporting to be.
In your warehouse, a proximity badge will perform best. Users just have to be in close proximity to the reader. HOWEVER, be warned that this is not a secure level of authentication since the badge can be carried by someone other than the person you issued it to. Therefore, for those applications in the warehouse that are higher risk, you should try and segregate them to stronger authentication.
Another choice in a warehouse scenario is to use voice authentication. This can be relatively cheaply deployed. It has some good performance specs relative to biometric authentication.
On my website, www.authenticationworld.com, I have referenced the performance of different biometrics.
Be warned however that the use of biometrics has drawbacks:
1. Some of them can be fudged depending on the technology you purchase
2. There are a lot of false positives with some of the biometrics
3. They can be expensive to deploy.
I have lots of resources on different authentication mechanisms on my website as well as a blog on authentication.
