Abstract

Unprecedented access to data and information through complex communication networks across the world had engendered development of various approaches in securing data to prevent unauthorized access to confidential information. In essence, cryptography and biometrics have been generally accepted as means of securing data and information. Cryptography and biometrics are not without pitfalls, the main shortcoming of cryptography is weak character or forgotten password while interclass similarities in the feature sets used to represent trait and storing of biometric templates in clear unprotected format had been the shortfalls in biometric. This paper presents a novel hybrid of cryptography and biometrics; a bimodal biometric Cryptosystem, using fingerprint and face as trait for authentication over computer network. Subjects’ information were encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and biometric templates were stored as Binary Large Object (BLOB) in MYSQL database secured with Message Digest 5 (MD 5) Hashing Algorithm. The system was developed and implemented to operate on one-try, two-try and three-try configurations at varying threshold values for stand-alone and network-based implementation. Furthermore, the developed system’s performance was evaluated using False Reject Rate (FRR), False Accept Rate (FAR) and Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC graph) as performance metrics. On ROC graph, three-try configuration gave optimal performance at all threshold values for the two implementations.