Securing Stored Biometric Template Using Cryptographic Algorithm

The biometric template protection technique provides the security in many authentication applications. Authentication based on biometrics has more advantages over traditional methods such as password and token-based authentication methods. The advantage of any biometric-based authentication system over a traditional one is that the person must physically be present at that place while recognizing him. So, it is essential to secure these biometrics by combining these with cryptography. In the proposed algorithm, the AES algorithm is used for securing the stored and transmitted biometric templates using helping data. The helping data is a variable type of data which is changed at every attempt for registration. The final symmetric key AES algorithm is a combination of helping data and actual symmetric keys of the AES algorithm. The experimental analysis shows that a brute force attack takes a long time to recover the original biometric template from cipher biometric template. So, the proposed technique provides sufficient security to stored biometric templates.