On the use of ordered biometric features for secure key agreement

Abstract

In this work, we propose a novel secure key agreement protocol, Secure Key Agreement using Pure Ordered Biometrics (SKA-POB), in which the cryptographic keys are generated using an ordered set of biometrics, without any other helper data. The proposed approach is realized using iris biometrics. Our protocol makes use of hash functions, and we propose a window-based comparison strategy and a window reset method. This way, performance is maximized without sacrificing security. SKA-POB protocol works in round manner, allowing to successfully terminate with key establishment as early as possible so that the complexity is reduced for both client and server sides. Additionally, we employ multi-criteria analyses for our proposed SKA-POB protocol and we provide verification results in terms of performance analysis together with randomness, distinctiveness and attack complexity through security analysis. Results show that highly random and secure keys can be generated with almost no error and with very low complexity