Need and perspectives to realize 

liveness detection

IBPC 2012, March 9th

@NIST, Gaithersburg

Ralph Breithaupt, BSI

Federal Office for Information Security
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 2 

Contents 

1. “Fakes are not always a bad thing...”

2. BSI – strategy regarding spoofing

3. Challenges in Vulnerability Assessment

4. Open questions & To-Do-list
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 3 

•In 2011 Bavarian police asked BSI for assistance in the 

investigation of a bombing attempt

1. “Fakes are not always a bad thing...”

•Provided with his fingerprints it was easy to break the 

biometric protection in the first attempt

•Unfortunately the police did not keep the phone charged 

⇒ the booting process still required both pincodes! 

We had to resort to our standard methods.

Lessons learned:

•always keep confiscated phones charged !

•raise awareness !: 

"Security is often cited as the biggest impediment to the broad adoption 

of mobile wallets, and we believe our jointly-developed NFC reference 

designs will give consumers greater confidence that mobile wallets are 

not only an easier way to pay but are much more secure than other 

means," added AuthenTec CEO Larry Ciaccia

•The suspect stored valuable information on his new 

mobile phone - equipped with newest biometric 

protection
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 4 

3. BSI – strategy regarding spoofing

Fake-attacks

1. Threat Assessment

2. Countermeasures

continuously collect & 

develop attack methods, 

„State of the Art“ -Tests 

3. Tests & Certification

development of test & 

certification methodologies, 

international standardization 

development of fake 

detection technologies, close 

contact to manufacturers 
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 5 

2.1 BSI-strategy: 1. Threat Assessment

since 2007 (LF I & II):

 collecting & evaluating publicly known fakes

 development of new fake types

 → BSI-Fake-Toolbox

 Vulnerability analysis of:

 relevant finger-scanner-technologies

 relevant finger-scanners with fake-detection

 Knowledge exchange & cooperation with 

manufacturers, laboratories, universities, police 

departments and other governments

 Testing service for manufacturers
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 6 

2.2 BSI-strategy: 2. HW-Countermeasures 

BOTTOM-UP: „Lifefinger III“ TOP DOWN: „3D-OCT-Finger“

New approaches for secure fingerprint scanners:

 Improvement of the “state of the 

art“ with additional sensors

 Basis: newest FP-scanner with 

high level SD

 Multimodal combination of liveness 

& selected skin properties detection

 complete scan of the finger in 3D 

with up to 3000dpi w. 1,5mm depth 

 detection of various anatomical 

skin features - all at once

 combinable with liveness detectors
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 7 

a) original FAR of LF1 b) FAR of LF1 + new sensors

With alternative fusion: FAR = 0.0%, FRR = 1,41% ! ()

2.2 BSI – strategy: Lifefinger III – Results 
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 8 

“Development of a new sensor type that detects 

many skin and FP properties at the same time” 

 detailed 3D-measurement of the finger up to a depth of 

1,5mm with “Optical Coherence Tomography“ (OCT) 

[standard medical instrument for iris & retina]

 Resolution of up to 12μm in all 3 dimensions

(small scanning area and low speed in 1st project)

 Detection of the fingerprint structure on the surface and in 

deeper layers (epidermis-dermis barrier). Comparison of 

both FP ⇒ detection of thin & full finger fakes!

 detection of sweat producing spiraling tubes + many more

∆λ

z 

I 

λ 

I 

Fouriertransformation

Spektrometer

Breitbandige Lichtquelle

2.2 BSI - strategy: OCT-Finger 
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 9 

 OCT shows a very high potential for SD

 However the results did not meet the 

expectations, due to:

 a relatively high number of faulty measurements

 filters and classificators could not be optimized

 Main issues were:

 huge amount of data

 very high complexity of filters/classificators 

(many different approaches at once)

 The computational needs were too high for parameter 

optimization and practical use

(5d for 1 evaluation of all ~5000 measurements!)

 OCT-CUDA: Massive parallel data analysis on 

GPUs – Speedup of ~40+ (<1 sec)

2.2 BSI - strategy: OCT-Finger results
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 10

2.3. BSI-strategy: Certification of Spoof Detection 

 international basis for the comparison of spoof 

detection solutions

 support for vendors of biometric devices to:

 reward their existing efforts in spoof detection 

development

 encourage further development in that area

 setting a starting point for international standardization 

& cooperation (& competition) in that area to make 

biometrics continuously more secure & trustworthy 

 a CC-certificate is one possibility to define & to demand 

a certain standard of reliability 
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 11

2.3. BSI-strategy: Common Criteria-first results

 two dedicated Protection Profiles (PPs) have been 

developed to address the specific characteristic of 

spoof detection devices

 The first PP (FSDPP_OSP) is based on 

Organizational Security Policies and focuses on a 

pure functional test of the biometric spoof detection

 The second PP (FSDPP) defines a dedicated level for 

vulnerability assessment (based on EAL 2) in order to 

describe an entry level into the classical assurance 

packages

 Both PPs are published on CC- & BSI- websites

 An evaluation methodology has also been developed 

but not yet published (FSDEG_V2.1 by TÜV-IT)
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 12

3. Challenges in Vulnerability Assessment 

SD in biometrics is something completely different in the field of CC 

 testing with fakes means „dirty“ handy work

 automated tests are barely possible

 Knowledge of possible attacks is always incomplete and 

constantly growing

 In the information-/Youtube- age one easy golden fake is enough 

to undermine the security of a device in general

 Functionality Tests = Vulnerability Tests 

 no known complete statistical model/foundation for tests

 successful fakes today are cheap and can be made / used 

without much expertise (low effort)
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 13

3. Challenges in Vulnerability Assessment 

Doing the numbers game:

 Standard security level for VTs in CC: 99,99..%!!!

Huge number of tests are necessary for a clean 

statistical analysis:

e.g.:

40 fake-materials *

5 additives *

mixture recepies with other materials [2c](10) *

mixture ratio variants (10) *

physical parameter variants [thickness] (10) *

fake type variants (30) * [rule of 30, CI of 95%]

= 200,000 fake types .... 6,000,000 tests!

we need a different approach!
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 14

3 Challenges in VT: BSI approach

BSI focused on certification of solely the SD component

 can be used as an additive in the certification of a biometric 

system

 can be transferred to other biometrics easier 

worst case assumption: 

 always use the best kinds of fakes

 all fake types are tested separately – no over all mean value

 if one fake type is “reproducibly” successful – the system fails!

The Fake-Tool-Box is the starting basis for functional tests 

(has to be updated regularly! - leading to new certificates)

complete statistical analysis will not be practicable 

 a reduced test setup must be fixed for comparability

 details of those tests are not known to the manufacturer
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 15

4. Open questions:

How can we reduce the necessary numbers?:

 Reducing tests by simulating parameter variants:

 develop a feasable model of material influence out of view 

test samples (example: thickness)

 automated tests may partially be possible to determine 

critical parameter values

How can we increase comparability?

Are there better ways to include VA in biometry in CC?
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 16

4. To-Do-List 

 EU-Project B.E.A.T (FP7-SEC-2011) “Biometrics Evaluation and 

Testing” Standardization of SD evaluation in biometrics in general

 CCDB – Supporting document on 

„Characterizing Attacks to Fingerprint Authentication Mechanisms“

National Cryptologic Centre (CCN, Centro Criptológico Nacional, Spain) + ATVS 

University of Madrid (UAM).

 CC-Certification of FP-scanners. 

 Proposal for a VA-methodology Project in ISO SC27 to support and 

complement the current work in SC37

 Practical cooperation within the BVAEG-group
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 17

4.3 Future Projects

Upcoming BSI-Projects 2012 - 2014:

 “Face Trust”

 Vulnerability evaluation of face biometry systems against spoof 

attacks

 Development of new technical countermeasures for SD

 Preparation of a vulnerability assessment methodology for CC

 “OCT-Finger II”

New & optimized BSI-OCT-hardware in combination with new 

classifiers (with CUDA-acceleration ), 10x scanning speed, higher 

resolution, better signal-noise ratio, bigger scanning area, etc – last 

development step prior to industrial prototype 

– parallel use for Iris (and Retina) biometry
R. Breithaupt, BSI „Need and perspectives to realize liveness detection”, IBPC 2012 – @NIST, March. 9th, 2012 18

... thank you for your attention!

Bundesamt für 

Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI)

Federal Office for Information Security

Ralph Breithaupt

Godesberger Allee 185-189

53175 Bonn, Germany

Tel: +49 (0)22899-9582- 5043

Fax: +49 (0)22899-10-9582- 5043

ralph.breithaupt@bsi.bund.de

www.bsi.bund.de