HOUSTON - Faced with a steady increase in illegal intrusions into its computer networks, the Army has accepted responsibility for research and development of biometric technologies to bolster the Defense Department's cybersecurity programs.
Supported by Sen. Robert Byrd (R-Va.), who pushed to have the Army designated as the executive agent for biometric security technologies, the Army is forging ahead with research into technologies that promise to make it harder for unauthorized individuals to gain access to critical networks and information.
According to Lt. Gen. William Campbell, the Army's director of information systems for command, control, communications and computers, speaking here at the annual Army Directors of Information Management Conference, the Army is looking at a combination of biometric technologies to secure its networks of the future.
The biometric security solutions under consideration by the Army include a range of well-known solutions, such as fingerprint, iris and retina scanners; voice and face recognition technologies; and handwriting analysis tools. But the Army also is studying hardware and software that can analyze keystrokes on a keyboard, recognize the pattern of an individual's wrist veins, and calculate the unique geometric characteristics of a person's finger and hand.
Movement on the biometric R&D front comes as the number of known cybersecurity incidents throughout the Army in 1999 hit 2,897 - an increase of more than 200 percent compared with 1998. Likewise, the number of confirmed network intrusions climbed from 13 in 1998 to 55 last year. So far this year there have been more than 1,370 security incidents and four known intrusions, Campbell sa
"We are probably being surveyed constantly," Campbell said. "As a nation, we are extended way beyond where we ought to be." Campbell added that DOD's Non-secure Internet Protocol Routing Network is, in his opinion, "horribly, horribly vulnerable."
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Story copyright 2000 FCW Government Technology Group. All rights reserved.
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