Personalised cryptographic key generation based on FaceHashing

Andrew B.J. Teoh, David C.L. Ngo, Alwyn Goh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

84 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Among the various computer security techniques practice today, cryptography has been identified as one of the most important solutions in the integrated digital security system. Cryptographic techniques such as encryption can provide very long passwords that are not required to be remembered but are in turn protected by simple password, hence defecting their purpose. In this paper, we proposed a novel two-stage technique to generate personalized cryptographic keys from the face biometric, which offers the inextricably link to its owner. At the first stage, integral transform of biometric input is to discretise to produce a set of bit representation with a set of tokenised pseudo random number, coined as FaceHash. In the second stage, FaceHash is then securely reduced to a single cryptographic key via Shamir secret-sharing. Tokenised FaceHashing is rigorously protective of the face data, with security comparable to cryptographic hashing of token and knowledge key-factor. The key is constructed to resist cryptanalysis even against an adversary who captures the user device or the feature descriptor.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)606-614
Number of pages9
JournalComputers and Security
Volume23
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2004 Oct

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Alwyn Goh is an experienced and well-published researcher in biometrics, cryptography and information security. His work is recognized by citations from the Malaysian National Science Foundation and the European Federation of Medical Informatics. He previously lectured Computer Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia where he specialised in data-defined problems, client server computing and cryptographic protocols. Goh has a Masters in Theoretical Physics from the University of Texas, and a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Physics from the University of Miami.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Science(all)
  • Law

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