Securing Business’s Front Door
Lawrence O’Gorman · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · 2005
Human authentication is the security task whose job is to limit access to computer networks and physical locations only to those with authorization. This is done by equipping authorized users with passwords or tokens, or using their biometrics. However, due to human limitations, these are often used poorly, thus weakening security, or they are secure but so inconvenient as to be circumvented. This chapter describes common means for authentication as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the major issues are detailed to emphasize the tradeoffs required when considering different authentication schemes. Examples of common systems applications are given with appropriate authentication choices. Finally, future trends are described to help to understand how soon and to what degree the security-convenience tradeoff will be improved.