Biometric or RFID? — TechKnowSurge

About this interactive

A badge or fob can be duplicated, lost or stolen. What cannot be lost or stolen is your thumb. Biometrics identifies you by something about your body, the way you were made, that is unique to you: a fingerprint, your eyes, your face. A reader scans it and grants access from it. RFID, radio frequency identification, is the technology inside key fobs and badges. A small tag is read by radio, without contact, and identifies whatever carries it. The same idea tracks things: the lesson's race timing chip starts and stops each runner's clock as she crosses the mats, and tags on goods or equipment are read as they pass. To sort a card, ask what is being identified: the person's body, or a tag the person or thing carries.

What you'll learn

Decide whether a biometric reader or RFID fits a job of identifying people or things

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+

4.6 Given a scenario, implement and maintain identity and access management.

1.2 Summarize fundamental security concepts.

Key terms

Biometrics: Authentication methods that use unique physical or behavioral characteristics such as fingerprints or retinal scans.
Radio Frequency Identification: Radio Frequency Identification uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects or embedded in access cards; in physical security, RFID cloning and eavesdropping attacks can allow unauthorized facility access.
Fingerprint Scanner: A biometric device that captures and analyzes a person's unique fingerprint pattern to verify identity and grant access.
Something You Are: The authentication factor category for evidence measured from the user's body, such as a fingerprint, a face, an iris or retina scan, or a voiceprint. Unlike a password or a token, this kind of evidence cannot be reissued once it is compromised, which is why biometrics are normally paired with another factor rather than trusted alone.
Something You Have: The authentication factor category for evidence the user physically possesses, such as a hardware security key, a PIV or CAC smart card, an enrolled authenticator app, or a phone registered to receive one-time codes. A one-time code is still possession even though it is typed like a password — the factor is the enrolled device that produced or received the code, not the digits themselves.

Topics

Interactive Streak Sort

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