Logical Security - Elements of Logical Security

Elements of Logical Security

Elements of logical security include:

• User IDs, also known as logins, user names, logons or accounts, are unique personal identifiers for agents of a computer program or network that is accessible by more than one agent. These identifiers are based on short strings of alphanumeric characters, and are either assigned or chosen by the users.
• Authentication is the process used by a computer program, computer, or network to attempt to confirm the identity of a user. Blind credentials (anonymous users) have no identity, but are allowed to enter the system. The confirmation of identities is essential to the concept of access control, which gives access to the authorized and excludes the unauthorized.
• Biometrics authentication is the measuring of a user’s physiological or behavioral features to attempt to confirm his/her identity. Physiological aspects that are used include fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, voice patterns, facial patterns, and hand measurements. Behavioral aspects that are used include signature recognition, gait recognition, speaker recognition and typing pattern recognition. When a user registers with the system which he/she will attempt to access later, one or more of his/her physiological characteristics are obtained and processed by a numerical algorithm. This number is then entered into a database, and the features of the user attempting to match the stored features must match up to a certain error rate.