Biometric Security Technique in Cellular Phones for Secured Communication

Mobile phones are playing a vital role in our life. As wireless communication has been rapidly advanced, mobile applications and services are becoming more and more popular, like instant messaging, downloading of a variety of contents, mobile commerce, mobile banking, and information searches. Mobile devices such as cellular phone, PDA and smart phone are exposed to numerous security threats like malicious code (including virus, worm and Trojan horses), vulnerabilities of mobile phone, attacks on communication, data robbery and damage and mobile spam. For voice communications, the introduction of security has been significantly slower. The main reason has been technological limitations.

The current protocols for wireless communication for either placing or receiving a call requires both MIN (Mobile Identification Number) and ESN (Electronic Serial Numbers) to be broadcasted between Wireless telephone and MSC (Mobile Switching Center). While doing so it is important to protect the Pair MIN and ESN,because they can be easily intercepted and can be illegally programmed. So we need a strong authentication mechanism toprotect the pair (MIN, ESN) and need an improved security system toprotect against unauthorized use of wireless communications.

The paperemploys the user’s finger print to authenticate the agents of wireless communication. By using finger prints it guarantees a strong authentication mechanism. Also it avoids maximum fraudulent case. The proposed system involves using atoken generated from biometric information, the user’s personal fingerprint as the secret key in the context of a “challenge-response” scenario. This system includes Finger print capture Module and acentral authentication system coupled to a Mobile Switching Centre. The Finger Print Capture Module uses the “Minutia Algorithm” andthe “Pattern Matching Algorithm” to record and retrieve the finger prints.

When a communication is initiated the Central Authentication system engages the “Challenge-response” authentication. It checks whether the user’s fingerprint entered through the Fingerprint Capture Module matches with the information sent from the Central Authentication System. Only if it matches the call is connected otherwise the call is denied. This virtually eliminates all, of thedrawbacks of the existing system.