Alpha-Wolves and Alpha-mammals: Exploring Dictionary Attacks on Iris Recognition Systems

Sudipta Banerjee, Anubhav Jain, Zehua Jiang, Nasir Memon, Julian Togelius, Arun Ross

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

    Abstract

    A dictionary attack in a biometric system entails the use of a small number of strategically generated images or templates to successfully match with a large number of identities, thereby compromising security. We focus on dictionary attacks at the template level, specifically the IrisCodes used in iris recognition systems. We present an hitherto unknown vulnerability wherein we mix IrisCodes using simple bit-wise operators to generate alpha-mixtures -alpha-wolves (combining a set of 'wolf' samples) and alpha-mammals (combining a set of users selected via search optimization) that increase false matches. We evaluate this vulnerability using the IITD, CASIA-IrisV4-Thousand and Synthetic datasets, and observe that an alpha-wolf (from two wolves) can match upto 71 identities @FMR=0.001%, while an alpha-mammal (from two identities) can match upto 133 other identities @FMR=0.01% on the IITD dataset.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Title of host publicationProceedings - 2024 IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision Workshops, WACVW 2024
    PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
    Pages1072-1081
    Number of pages10
    ISBN (Electronic)9798350370287
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2024
    Event2024 IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision Workshops, WACVW 2024 - Waikoloa, United States
    Duration: Jan 4 2024Jan 8 2024

    Publication series

    NameProceedings - 2024 IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision Workshops, WACVW 2024

    Conference

    Conference2024 IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision Workshops, WACVW 2024
    Country/TerritoryUnited States
    CityWaikoloa
    Period1/4/241/8/24

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Computer Science Applications
    • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
    • Media Technology

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