An embedded biometric system for comparison aims at comparing a stored biometric data with a freshly acquired one without the need to send the stored biometric data outside the system. Here one may try to retrieve the stored data via side channel, similarly as for embedded cryptographic modules where one may try to exploit side channel for attacking the modules.
On one hand, we show that we can find partial information by the means of simple Side Channel Analysis that may help to retrieve the stored fingerprint. On the other hand, we illustrate that reconstructing the fingerprint remains not trivial and we give some simple countermeasures to protect further the comparison algorithm.
Category / Keywords: implementation / Side Channel Analysis, Hardware Biometric Coprocessor, Biometric Comparison Date: received 9 Jan 2014 Contact author: julien bringer at gmail com Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation Note: This work was partially funded by the French ANR project BMOS. Version: 20140110:092158 (All versions of this report) Short URL: ia.cr/2014/026 Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion