by First American State Bank | May 9, 2023 | News
Overview
Do you hate passwords? Are you tired of constantly logging into new websites or can’t remember all of your complex passwords? Frustrated by having to generate new passwords for new accounts or having to change old passwords for existing accounts? We have good news for you. There is a solution called biometrics that helps make cybersecurity easier for you. Below we explain what biometrics are, how they make your life simpler and why you will start seeing more of them.
First, Why Password?
Passwords are part of something called authentication, the process of proving who you are. There have typically been two things you can provide to prove your identity: something you know (like your passwords) and something you have (like an ATM card or your mobile device). Traditionally authentication has been done with passwords. Passwords were first adopted as it was one of the easiest authentication solutions to deploy. However, over the years our lives have become far more complicated with far more accounts than anyone ever expected. It is quite common for a person to have over 100 passwords in their work and personal life.
In addition, cyber attackers have become quite good at guessing, stealing or cracking passwords.
This is why you see so many rules about passwords, such as making them long (so they are hard to guess) and using a unique password for every account (so if one of your accounts is hacked, your other accounts are still safe). The problem with all of the password requirements is they make being cybersecure more difficult. Password managers dramatically help as they securely remember all of your passwords and log you into websites for you, but is there a better way? This is where biometrics can help by providing a third thing to prove your identity – something you are.
Biometrics
Like passwords, biometrics are another way to prove who you are. The difference is instead of having to remember something (like your passwords) you use an element of who you are to prove your identity, such as using your fingerprint to gain access to your phone. Biometrics are much simpler as you don’t have to remember or type anything, you just authenticate using who you are. There are many different types of biometric such as your voice, how you walk, or your iris prints. However, fingerprints and facial recognition are the two most common, especially for mobile devices. While biometrics have a tremendous number of advantages, they also have some disadvantages, one of the biggest being if your fingerprint or face is copied by cyber attackers, you cannot change them.
Passkeys
Over the coming months and years, you should start seeing biometrics replacing passwords with a new technology called Passkeys. This technology is being adopted by Microsoft, Apple and Google and you should soon see it being adopted at more and more websites over time. Passkeys replace passwords by allowing you to prove who you are by simply using biometrics combined with your mobile device. When you create an account at a website (such as Google or Apple) instead of creating a password you register your mobile device. Moving forward you log into that website by authenticating with your mobile device using biometrics, such as your fingerprint or facial recognition. The website trusts your mobile device, and your mobile device confirms it’s you using biometrics. In addition, your biometric data (fingerprint or face) is not sent to any website. Instead, your biometrics is securely stored locally on your device. It’s just used to unlock the “Passkey”, a unique key, created for each site, which your device sends to the site while protecting your biometric data. While no solution is perfect, biometrics and solutions like Passkeys can help keep you secure while simplifying security.
by First American State Bank | May 1, 2023 | Cyber Security News, News
From: SANS Security Awareness
Artificial Intelligence (AI) describes systems programmed to think and respond like humans. In fact, we asked the AI solution ChatGPT that very question and got this response.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans. It involves the development of algorithms and computer programs that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as recognizing speech, understanding natural language, making decisions, and playing games. There are several types of AI, including rule-based AI, expert systems, and machine learning.
What makes AI so powerful is it can simulate the intelligence and reasoning capability of the human mind, but it can analyze exponentially far more information than any human and do it exponentially faster.
The concept of AI is not new. Originally covered in science fiction novels, AI is something that has been in development for decades. The reason you are hearing so much about it now is that for the first time, anyone has the opportunity to interact with and see the true functionality of AI.
ChatGPT, an online-powered AI chat bot, is one of the first publicly available solutions that is able to respond like a real human, passing something called the Turing Test. This test determines a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior by having a real human interact with the machine through a text- based chat channel. If the human could not tell whether they were interacting with a machine or person, the machine is said to have passed the test. AI solutions today are the first publicly available that do just that.
However, online conversations are just the beginning of what AI can do. There are now AI solutions that can create a video of a person teaching a class in any language, analyze health records and quickly determine who most likely has cancer, create news articles or essays on the topic of your choice, generate images for children’s books, or create code for new computer programs. While AI is not necessarily something to be feared, there are some dangers of which to be aware.
Dangers of Artificial Intelligence
- Recreating You: AI solutions can take a recording of a person’s voice – your voice – and then use it to create real-time audio that sounds just like you, saying whatever it wants to impersonate you. So, a cyber attacker could record a phone voice message that sounds like you, tricking your coworkers, your bank, or a family member into thinking you called and asked them to take an action. AI can also do this with pictures or video. Sometimes called Deep Fakes, an AI solution can take an existing picture or video of you and use it to recreate entirely new pictures or videos (including your voice) appearing to show you doing things that you never did.
- Wrong Answers: As for the data or answers AI provides, the solutions can be wrong. AI often uses public information from the Internet, and its answers can be influenced by the biases of its developers. While typical search engines are designed to provide you the “best” or most correct answer to your queries, solutions like AI may be designed to give you the most human- like answer. Which is better depends on what you are attempting to achieve.
- Not All Equal: With AI becoming the latest hot technology, there are literally hundreds of startup companies now offering different AI services. Many of these want your information or credit card for a trial. Be careful – not all AI services are trustworthy. Do your research before signing up and using an AI service.
- Your Privacy: Whenever using or interacting with an AI system, such as when chatting online with ChatGPT, be aware that any information you enter into the system can not only be processed by it but also retained and used to give answers to others. This means if you enter any personal information about yourself or any confidential information from work, that information will be stored and potentially shared with or sold to others. Do not share or enter any information that you consider sensitive, personal, or is confidential at work.
The Future of AI
Artificial Intelligence is still very much in its infancy, similar to where the Internet was twenty to thirty years ago. While we can expect rapid evolution and adoption of AI, it’s very difficult to predict what its impact will be. Just be aware that these capabilities are out there, and when using AI, be very careful what information you enter and share.
