Abstract
This paper discusses a biometric encryption systemusing fuzzy vault scheme implemented on FPGA developmentboard. Cryptographic algorithms are very secure overall buthave a weak point in terms of the storage of the crypto keys.Biometric authentication systems have many exploitable weakpoints that can be used to compromise the system. Biometricencryption is a security scheme that combines strongcryptographic algorithms with biometric authentication toprovide better security. This paper discusses a simpleimplementation of a biometric encryption system as a stand-aloneembedded device. Fuzzy vault scheme is used as the method tobind the crypto key and biometrics. The system processes wereimplemented as software blocks run on the firmware.
Keywords-security; fingerprint; FPGA; fuzzy vault
I. INTRODUCTION
Security and access control are essential requirements inthis highly computerized world. Common applications ofaccess control can be seen in everyday life of ordinaryindividuals such as laptop and computer passwords, mobilephone access pins, office entrance security etc. There are twomain types of security systems, biometric authentication andcryptography. Biometric authentication systems have strongkeys which are the user’s biometric data but have been provenvulnerable to attacks at almost every stage of the authenticationprocess [1].To date, modern encryption algorithms have been provenunbreakable even by brute force attacks [2]. However, accessto the cryptographic key is well-known to be the mainweakness in any crypto-based security system. Current securitysystems provide access to the crypto key using secondarysecurity measures such as passwords, smart-cards etc. Howeverthese security measures have been proven inadequate andvulnerable to circumvention. This is because user passwordscan be guessed or cracked and hardware tokens such as smartcards can be stolen or lost.By far the best way to secure these cryptographic keyswould be to tie them to the user’s biometric features. Sincebiometric features can neither be stolen nor forgotten, such asecurity scheme could not be easily fooled or circumvented byattackers. A cryptographic security scheme that uses userbiometrics to grant access to the crypto keys is known as abiometric encryption [3]. There is a need for embedded deviceimplementation of biometric encryption. Biometric encryptionsystems are ideal for stand-alone security and authenticationdevices with commercial applications such as bank ATMs,office security administration, e-commerce, home securitysystems etc.Biometric encryption is a double-layered security schemewhere the user’s biometric data such as fingerprints is used asthe key to grant access to the cryptographic key in the firstlayer and then the cryptographic key is used to unlock thesecond layer of the security system. One well known method ofimplementing biometric encryption is known as a fuzzy vaultscheme. The fuzzy vault scheme is a mechanism that binds thecrypto key to the user’s biometrics unequivocally [4]. Fig. 1shows the basic architecture of a biometric encryption system.This paper describes the implementation of such anencryption scheme on an embedded device. The remainder ofthe paper is divided into the following sections. Section IIdocuments the image processing and feature extraction forfingerprint images. Section III discusses the minutiae extractionand validation procedure. Section IV discusses themethodology of the fuzzy vault scheme. Section V shows theFPGA implementation of the fingerprint-based biometricencryption. Section VI shows the results and analysis. Andfinally, Section VII concludes the paper with summary andfuture work recommendations.



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