Obama’s cybersecurity adviser: Biometrics will replace passwords for safety’s sake

Washington Times | October 9, 2014

The days of using a password to access a bank account or cellphone will soon be a thing of the past, President Obama’s top cybersecurity adviser said Thursday.

The risk of getting hacked by criminals has grown so widespread that far more sophisticated identification technology — including biometric scanning devices — will become the norm, said Michael Daniel, the White House’s cybersecurity coordinator.

“You’ve started to see some of that with the emergence of the fingerprint readers,” said Mr. Daniel, adding that the technology will become increasingly mainstream as cellphone cameras, “hard” card readers and other authentication gadgets replace the annoying process for millions of Americans of punching in a password to confirm their identity.

“Frankly, I would really love to kill the password dead as a primary security method because it’s terrible,” Mr. Daniel said at an event hosted by the Center for National Policy, Northrop Grumman Corp. and the Christian Science Monitor

Since passwords can so easily be hacked, a variety of new technologies will provide more protection and some “will be biometric related,” he said.

Mr. Daniel’s comments come against a backdrop of recent friction between the U.S. Justice Department and private tech giants like Apple, which unveiled a host of new privacy features for its iPhones and iPads last month designed to frustrate government snoopers.

Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/9/obamas-cybersecurity-adviser-biometrics-will-repla/#ixzz3FnNbTkcM