Among the many solutions, biometrics, normally fingerprint authentication, has the potential to significantly increase the quality of security at the individual and network level. But the promise of biometrics – greater assurance that the individual accessing data is the person they claimed to be and is authorized to do so – can only be realized by eliminating the ability to circumvent that protection at the password level by securing a private key.
The most common digital keys on the Internet are in Asymmetrical Public Key Encryption. This involves use of two randomly generated keys. The first is referred to as the public key. As the name implies, a public key can be seen or known by anyone. It encrypts data for protection and verifies an electronic signature generated by its owner. The second key is the private key used to decrypt data that has been encrypted with the matching public key. It is also used to generate an electronic signature that can later be verified by the matching public key.