Securing Minutia Cylinder Codes for Fingerprints through Physically Unclonable Functions: An Exploratory Study

A number of personal devices, such as smartphones, have incorporated fingerprint recognition solutions for user authentication purposes. This work proposes a dual-factor fingerprint matching scheme based on P-MCCs (Protected Minutia Cylinder-Codes) generated from fingerprint images and PUFs (Physically Unclonable Functions) generated from device SRAMs (Static Random Access Memories). Combining the fingerprint identifier with the device identifier results in a secure template satisfying the discriminability, irreversibility, revocability, and unlinkability properties, which are strongly desired for data privacy and security. Experiments convey the benefits of the proposed dual-factor authentication mechanism in enhancing the security of personal devices that utilize biometric authentication schemes.