HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson at first attempted to postpone implementation of the Clinton-era regs, which were vociferously opposed by industry, but relented under mounting political heat. Companies found in violation can face stiff fines and corporate CEOs could do jail time if successfully prosecuted. A recent report from the Boston-based Yankee Group spells out several potential solutions to these continuing problems. One technology group that the Yankee analysts like is biometrics. Biometrics would replace multiple levels of password security with, for example, identification by voice recognition, retinal scan or thumbprint identification.
Nobody wants to have to plug in one more device.
Keyboards, PDAs and cell phones equipped with thumbprint scanners are on their way to market, according to Miller, and their prices are plummeting. The health care and financial industries are the leading verticals implementing biometric identification. For nurses to access different portions of the patient's records, they may need to use as many as seven different passwords. Not surprisingly, multiple passwords are carried around in printed form, a practice, which, in itself, is a security breach. Managed security service providers like Vigilinx keep watch on a company's systems much as home security companies monitor household intrusions.