Brain’s Reaction to Certain Words Could Replace Passwords

According to a new study published in the journal Neurocomputing, researchers from Binghamton University say that you may not need to remember your complicated email and bank account passwords for much longer, due to the way your brain responds to certain words, which could be used as a replacement. During the study, researchers observed the brain signals of 45 volunteers as they read a list of 75 acronyms, such as FBI and DVD. They recorded the brain’s reaction to each group of letters, focusing on the part of the brain associated with reading and recognizing words. They found that the participants’ brains reacted differently to each acronym, enough that a computer system was able to identify each volunteer with 94-percent accuracy. The results of which suggest that brainwaves could be used by security systems to verify a person’s identity. A co-author of the study explained that brain biometrics are appealing because they are cancelable and cannot be stolen by malicious means the way a finger print or retina can. “If someone’s fingerprint is stolen, that person can’t just grow a new finger to replace the compromised fingerprint — the fingerprint for that person is compromised forever. Fingerprints are ‘non-cancellable.’ Brain prints, on the other hand, are potentially cancelable. So, in the unlikely event that attackers were actually able to steal a brain print from an authorized user, the authorized user could then ‘reset’ their brain print.” To read more about this study, click here.