by Anika D | Jan 12, 2022 | General
Face recognition is becoming the mainstream technology used in sectors starting from law enforcement to biometric security. In addition, many organizations started using it in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Facial recognition technology has a great potential to reduce physical contact or personal interactions and enforce COVID safety rules. Moreover, various IT giants offer cloud-based services like Microsoft Azure’s Face, Amazon Web Services Rekognition, etc.
Amazon’s Rekognition is a service that goes beyond face matching by detecting activities and understanding the movement. The ability to identify people and understand everything happening in a scene expands the technology’s use and business value.
Future of Face Recognition Technology
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● Face Detection
Face detection technology performs the following essential tasks to obtain better performance of face-related applications:
- Determining facial regions in a picture against different backgrounds.
- Determining the face alignment, like size, position, and rotation.
With the development of various face-related applications, face detection technology has become important in recent years to detect faces under challenging situations.
● Face Alignment
Facial pose and expressions impact the accuracy of face recognition. Therefore, it is vital to align the shape and position of facial parts for accurate face recognition. So, it is necessary to have a robust
● Face Matching
Face matching technology extracts a vector feature from a face image to identify the pre-registration of the person in the photo. However, the conditions of registered and query images captured are not always the same.
Variations of illumination or posture and facial expressions constitute significant factors to match performance degradation. To solve this pose variation problem, you can use face normalization technology. It corrects the frontal face posture as well as the size and position of an image by using a 3D shape model.
Use Cases
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The two critical applications for facial recognition technology are authentication and surveillance. Though both have a range of use cases, authentication has got acceptance by the public. It is convenient to outweigh the privacy implications.
The ease of unlocking Windows computers and smartphones with apps logging and authenticating transactions has made people comfortable with the technology. Meanwhile, it is also used in agreement with smart passports, speeding the immigration queues.
During COVID-19, most businesses apply facial recognition to build access management in the COVID-safe plan to return to work. It eliminates guest’s and staff’s requirement to check-in through communal touchscreen kiosks.
Face recognition technology can be integrated with self-service checkouts, supporting payments authorization or loyalty cards for completely touchfree transactions in the retail environment. In addition, various fraud detection applications in the financial sector are using this technology for two-factor authentication.
Also, some supermarkets are planning to encourage customers to ‘Just Walk Out’ with shopping bags by paying automatically. It is all thanks to artificial intelligence advances and facial recognition. The face recognition technology enables supermarkets to make completely checkout-less stores and minimal staff.
Conclusion
The future of face recognition technology is bright. It will indeed stay for a long time, so we should embrace its benefits. As seen above, various use cases show that facial recognition helps a lot. For example, it creates a safe environment, providing great security and enhancing customer experiences.
by Linda Rawson | Feb 5, 2021 | Cybersecurity, Information Technology
A cyber-resilient mindset is different from a cybersecurity mindset, although they are complimentary. Cybersecurity has often been an afterthought in System Engineering. It always surprises me to read through diagrams or models and discover not one mention of cybersecurity. Criminals will exploit humans and systems to bring the system to its knees and cause massive revenue loss.
Security in System Engineering has a lot to do with WHO is involved more than vulnerabilities. The most important thing for System Engineering security is in changing the culture to embrace security. No exceptions. Security must be built into the project at the beginning.
Implementing a DevSecOps approach ensures that security, development, and IT Ops teams work toward a joint security goal. ~ Linda Rawson
The People are Not the Process.
DevSecOps is agile in nature, and the people are still involved but not in the same capacity as they were in the Waterfall model. In DevSecOps, the people are not the process: The pipeline, the set of phases and tools that the code follows to reach deployment, defines the process.
The phases include Build, Test, and Deployment and prefer automation over manual methods. Build automation consists of the tools needed to grab the code and compile it. Test executes the automated test cases, while deployment drops the build into its destination. It means using static analysis tools that check the portions of code that have been changed versus scanning the entire code base.
The People Monitor the Process and Respond to Process Failures
Training hardware and software developers regularly on new cyber-attack techniques and exploitation vectors is essential to application solution security. Security and quality assurance policies need to be promulgated among the team to make development standards unambiguous and clear for everyone. Defensive Coding Practices result in more complicated code but writing code while thinking how an attacker might think, reduces vulnerabilities, and therefore reduces risk.
All Levels of Management Must Be Involved
Individuals from government stakeholders, operations, security, and development teams must be encouraged to have a cyber-resilient mindset. If you are proactive and think like a cyber attacker, you would do things differently instead of explaining why an attack occurred. In the case of an extensive enterprise system, why bank accounts were drained, or an airplane hit the ground.
Adopting Cybersecurity Practices
Adopting cybersecurity practices such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, and constant distribution has dramatically accelerated the speed at which organizations release and update applications. Security is no longer something that can be bolted on at the end of the development cycle but must be started by a proactive organization.
This blog was written by Linda Rawson, of DynaGrace Enterprises (dynagrace.com). For further information, please connect with Linda on LinkedIn, or contact her at (800) 676-0058 ext 101.
#systemengineering #cybersecurity #cybersecurityawareness #DevSecOps #infosec #security #mindset
by Dr. Jane Fitzgerald | Dec 12, 2020 | Blockchain, Emerging Technology
Blockchain is an encrypted distributed database that records data. It can also be explained as a digital archive of all transactions and contracts that need to be registered independently. One of blockchain’s key advantages is that it is accessible through hundreds of thousands of computers and not limited to one location. The technology has already started to threaten the financial services market and also establishes the digital currency for a Bitcoin transaction.
Image Provided by Pixabay
With Blockchain technology in the financial sector, participants can interact directly and transact over the internet without third party interference; these transactions via blockchain do not share participant personal information and create a transaction record by encrypting identifying details. Blockchain’s most thrilling feature is that it significantly reduces the risk of a data breach. In contrast to traditional processes, multiple shared copies of the same database are present in the blockchain. This makes it difficult to perform any data violations attack or cyber attack. With all the characteristics that resist fraud, blockchain technology can revolutionize various business sectors and make processes more intelligent, secure, transparent, and efficient than traditional business processes.
Benefits of Blockchain Technology
- Direct transactions that eliminate overheads and intermediary costs.
- Highly secure due to cryptographic and blockchain’s decentralized protocols.
- Increased time effectiveness due to real-time transactions.
- More transparent processes with proper record creation and tracking.
- Reduced risks related to cybercrimes, frauds, and tampering.
Applications of Blockchain Technology in Various Industries
Blockchain’s technology enhances many sectors such as Financial Services, Education, Government, Travel and Entertainment, Retail, and CPG.
Financial services
Blockchain technology, in many innovative ways, has already been implemented in the financial services sector. By offering an integrated trading lifecycle, blockchain technology simplifies and streamlines the entire process associated with asset management and payments, allowing all participants to access the same transaction data. It eliminates the need for brokers or intermediaries and guarantees accountability and effective transactional data management.
Healthcare
By increasing the privacy, security, and interoperability of the healthcare data, blockchain plays a crucial role in the medical sector. It can solve several interoperability challenges in the sector. The various organizations and people involved in the process can safely share data among themselves. By eliminating third-party intrusion, overhead costs decrease, and with secure encryptions, distributed databases store health records and digital signatures in blockchain to ensure confidentiality and authenticity.
Government
The technology of blockchain has the potential to change government processes and services. It can play a key role in improving data transaction challenges in the government’s current silo sector. The proper connection and sharing of data with blockchain allow better data management between several departments. It enhances transparency and strengthens transaction tracking and auditing processes.
CPG and Retail
The retail market could benefit greatly from Blockchain technology implementation. What the database will do is ensure that high-quality goods are genuinely authentic, prevent fraudulent transactions, find stolen items, enable virtual guarantees, manage loyalty points, and streamline supply chain operations.
Travel and hospitality
Blockchain’s application can change the travel and hospitality industry radically. Money transactions, storing key documents such as passports/other ID cards, reservations, and travel management, loyalty, and rewards can be processed through Blockchain.
Image Provided by Wikipedia
Key Challenges of using Blockchain Technology
Lack of understanding and knowledge of the technological concept are the main challenges of using it in non-financial services industries. The problems associated with the current legacy of corporate infrastructures and the lack of sufficient technological expertise are major barriers to blockchain’s widespread adoption. Adopting blockchain often means shifting culture from conventional ways of doing stuff, as it entails a significant change towards decentralizing the entire process. Compliance with current regulations and maintaining the privacy and protection needed for shared databases also adds to the key roadblocks in blockchain adoption.
The world of business will yet thoroughly explore the distinctions of the blockchain concept. Yet, we expect that the business world will soon see the vast potential of this technology with ongoing research and development in this field and to push a new wave of decentralized applications.
by Payton | Oct 22, 2018 | General
With over 4.2 billion users surfing the internet, it may seem nearly impossible to protect your sensitive information from hackers and thieves. Devices connected to the internet often house our personal and professional lives. If a cyber criminal compromised this sensitive information, there could be disastrous consequences. However, the government dedicated the month of October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month in 2004 to educate internet users on how to navigate the web safely.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month
During October, the United States Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance provide easily accessible information and tips to all netizens on how they can protect themselves online. The campaign is vital because it gives everyone in the cyberspace tools and knowledge to thwart cybercriminals. Although society is quickly shifting to a more digitalized world, it is surprising that the majority of users are blissfully unaware of the threats they can encounter online. Sharing too much information on social media sites, sending unencrypted personal information electronically, and making purchases on unsafe websites are common ways that criminals gain access to sensitive information.
“While the speed at which technology and information move can expose us to new risks online, it also enables a level of sharing and cooperation that can make us more resilient to cyber threats… National Cybersecurity Awareness Month isn’t just about understanding the risks, but also emphasizing our collective power to combat them.” – FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Matt Gorham.
Furthermore, basic cyberattacks on personal devices can give criminals access to large businesses and organizations. For example, a hacker gained access to an employees computer information that eventually led to a cybersecurity breach against the United States Office of Personnel Management. The attack cost the company $21.5 million. Therefore, it is imperative that every individual takes proper cybersecurity precautions.
Results
As the government further educates internet users on cybersecurity risks, people are installing more security software. The number of software downloads increased significantly since 2004. Additionally, more cybercriminals are being reported and convicted. For example, the government arrested a cyber criminal who attempted to access university databases, 74 arrests of members of the overseas transnational criminal networks and a North Korean regime programmer who conspired to conduct multiple damaging cyber attacks resulting in extensive data and money loss, hardware destruction, and the loss of other resources.
With increased awareness, internet users can stay safe and protect their private information. Cybersecurity is a responsibility that lies on everyone’s shoulders. If we all fulfill our duty, we can significantly decrease the number of information breaches.
For more information about cybersecurity, visit our website https://dynagrace.com/.
Resources: https://www.normantranscript.com/opinion/happy-cyber-security-awareness-month/article_2864473b-205f-51c1-b06a-a793e2ffb5c9.html, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/ncsam-2018, https://www.army.mil/article/211977/keep_info_safe_during_cyber_security_awareness_month, https://www.wombatsecurity.com/cybersecurity-awareness-month?utm_term=%2Bcyber%20%2Bsecurity%20%2Bawareness%20%2Bmonth&utm_campaign=Security+Awareness+Month&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8253056476&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_cam=1566723829&hsa_ad=295401163184&hsa_kw=%2Bcyber%20%2Bsecurity%20%2Bawareness%20%2Bmonth&hsa_grp=60967832564&hsa_mt=b&hsa_ver=3&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-368130389969&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6rXeBRD3ARIsAD9ni9DBJ8oOpYn7F2kz2M5GzZfQUn5qnX-DKgeh8mJkvHtEdgtNDSPMCfQaAvIeEALw_wcB
Picture Resources: Featured Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/79061493@N04/10442488614/in/photostream/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/conquest-uk/30363339915/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/theboeingcompany/8090236600/
by Payton | Oct 15, 2018 | General
In a digitalized society, the importance of having top-notch cybersecurity has never been more crucial. Cyber-attacks can destroy businesses, reveal sensitive information, and drain your finances. Additionally, according to a new publication, they can also cause mass destruction and death. Recently, an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the U.S. military’s newly developed weaponry systems revealed that they have critical cyber vulnerabilities. These security holes allow hackers easy access to control all of the U.S.’s computerized weapons systems. Furthermore, these findings indicate that, while the military prioritized the development of weapons, they failed to focus on the cybersecurity.
The Audit
The government conducted an audit from 2012 to 2017 that focused on their developing weaponry systems. They utilized skilled, friendly hackers to probe the Pentagon’s online networks for security holes and weaknesses. After releasing their findings this past Tuesday, the results are shocking. The hackers discovered carelessness and negligence in nearly all developing weapons systems. These security vulnerabilities allowed them to easily access the country’s military weapons through online means. Furthermore, in their reports, they stated that they were able to take control of entire systems, view the operator’s computer screens, and delete and add data. As a joke, they even flashed pop-up messages on the operator’s computer screens telling them that they needed to insert quarters before proceeding.
Moreover, while these results are startling, the agency warned that the reported problems represented a small fraction of the overall cyber vulnerabilities in the Defense Department.
What Caused the Security Vulnerabilities?
The GAO listed negligence to fundamental cybersecurity practices as the primary cause of the vulnerabilities. One typical example they saw was using default passwords. In one instance, the team of hackers took a total of nine seconds to guess an administrator’s security password.
“Due to this lack of focus on weapon systems cybersecurity, DOD likely has an entire generation of systems that were designed and built without adequately considering cybersecurity. . . Bolting on cybersecurity late in the development cycle or after a system has been deployed is more difficult and costly than designing it in from the beginning.” –GAO report
Past Reports
This report remains one of many warning the government of deficient cybersecurity. In 1996, the GAO brought cybersecurity vulnerabilities to the public’s attention. Additionally, in 2004, they notified the Pentagon that connecting military systems through the Internet also opened the door to hackers.
Furthermore, while the Pentagon issued a report that they are improving their security standards in response to the audit, many people question their sincerity. In one of the past assessments, the Pentagon only corrected 1 out of 20 identified vulnerabilities.
Threats of Digitalization
As a society, we tend to transition physical objects onto online networks so they can be controlled and operated online. In the government’s case, they digitally transitioned the control of weapons and spent approximately $1.6 trillion developing the new system. While online controls are convenient for us, it also opens the door to the possibility of hackers gaining control of these objects and using them to hurt or kill others.
On the other hand, digitalizing the weaponry system has allows the Pentagon to increase their military capabilities beyond what they could have imagined. For example, the F-23 Joint Strike Fighter is connected to millions of digital coding lines that allow it to activate and target areas. While using multiple codes as a safeguard is a great idea, it only truly protects others if it has cybersecurity against hackers.
For more information about cybersecurity, visit our website https://dynagrace.com/.
Resources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/10/nearly-all-new-us-weapons-systems-have-critical-cyber-security-problems-auditors-say/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9da3d54db4ff, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/defense-industry-grapples-with-cybersecurity-flaws-in-new-weapons-systems/2018/10/14/b1de3bae-ce36-11e8-a360-85875bac0b1f_story.html?utm_term=.c77ebadd1d0e, https://sputniknews.com/us/201810141068879069-us-cyber-security-pentagon-risks/, https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/411232-watchdog-exposes-pentagons-cyber-struggles?amp
Picture Resources: Featured Image: https://pixabay.com/en/f-35a-lightning-ii-fighter-jet-2657514/, https://pixabay.com/en/pentagon-washington-dc-military-80394/, https://pixabay.com/en/internet-cyber-network-finger-3589685/, https://pixabay.com/en/internet-security-password-login-1952019/
