IJSTE - International Journal of Science Technology & Engineering | Volume 1 | Issue 10 | April 2015

ISSN (online): 2349-784X

Spoofing Protection for Biometric Systems

Ms. Aleena. T .A
PG Student (M. Tech)
Department of Applied Electronics & Communication
Thejus Engg. College

Ms. Chithra .K
PG Student (M. Tech)
Department of Applied Electronics & Communication
Thejus Engg. College

Mr. Rahul Ramachandran

PG Student (M. Tech)
Department of Applied Electronics & Communication
Thejus Engg. College

Abstract
A biometric system is a computer system used to identify people based on their behavioral and physiological characteristics. In
such kinds of systems, the security is still a question mark because of various types of intruders and attacks. This problem can be
solved by improving the security using some efficient algorithms available. This paper introduces a novel software-based fake
detection method that can be used in multiple biometric systems (fingerprint, iris, face, palm print) to detect different types of
fraudulent access attempts through the use of image quality assessment. The proposed approach uses 25 general image quality
features extracted from a single image to distinguish between real and fake samples. The system proves to be efficient for the
protection against different spoofing attacks.
Keywords: Biometrics, Feed forward neural network, Gaussian, Image quality assessment, Spoofing
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I. INTRODUCTION
Biometrics refers to the metrics related to human characteristics and traits. The term biometrics is originated from Greek words,
bios and metron, literally meaning measurement of life. Biometric identifiers are classified as physiological and behavioral
characteristics. Physiological characteristics are related to shape of the body. Fingerprint, palm veins, face, DNA, palm print,
hand geometry, iris are the examples. Gait and voice are the examples of behavioral characteristics. The use of biometric systems
has increased rapidly in recent years. Biometric systems are used in security systems in banks, schools and other institutions.
With the increase in its popularity, new threats have also appeared. One of the most important is the use of fake samples to
overcome the verification step. These fake samples can be obtained from genuine users by different means. In these attacks, the
intruders use some type of synthetically produced artifact like gummy finger, printed iris image or face mask or tries to mimic
the behavior of the genuine user (e.g., gait, signature) to fraudulently access the biometric system. Such attacks are generally
referred as spoofing attacks. Liveness detection can be done using either hardware or software techniques. Liveness assessment
methods should satisfy certain conditions such as fast performance, effectiveness etc. Liveness detection can be performed either
at the acquisition stage or at processing stage. Image quality is a characteristic of an image that measures the degradation of
perceived image. Image quality assessment is an important topic in the image processing area. In this paper, a software based
image quality assessment with 25 image quality features is done to detect the fake samples.

II. RELATED WORKS

Many different approaches were proposed for implementing liveness detection. In the case of hardware based technique,
different types of sensors were used that differentiates temperature, pressure, electric resistance of real and fake biometrics.
Software methods are more complicated but do not require additional hardware and hence they are cheap. In 2012, E. Marasco
and C. Sansone proposed perspiration based method [16]. In 2012, J.Galbally et.al proposed a software-based liveness detection
approach using a novel fingerprint parameterization based on quality related features. The proposed system proves to be robust
to the multi-scenario dataset, and presents an overall rate of 90% correctly classified samples [3]. Galbally et.al proposed
liveness detection scheme for iris based on quality related measures. This novel anti-spoofing technique was tested on a database
comprising over 1,600 real and fake. The Parameterization worked and applied to this liveness detection comprises twenty-two
quality based features [4]. E. Marascoet.al proposed another software-based liveness detection algorithm that exploits
morphological and perspiration-based characteristics separately to measure the vitality. Both such features provide discriminant
information about live and fake fingers, then, it is reasonable to investigate also their joint contribution. This method combines a
set of the most robust morphological and perspiration-based measures [5]. Under the assumption that human visual perception is
highly adapted for extracting structural information from a scene, an alternative framework for quality assessment based on the
degradation of structural information was proposed by .Z. Wang et.al. A. Liu, W. Lin et.al introduced a new image quality
assessment (IQA) scheme, with emphasis on gradient similarity was proposed.. Using such information, structural and contrast
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changes can be effectively captured [7]. Y. S. Moon et.al, proposed a simple and effective approach for fingerprint liveness
detection based on the wavelet analysis of the fingertip surface texture. Wavelet analysis can help to minimize the effect of ridge
valley pattern when estimating the surface coarseness as it allows investigation of the input signal at different scales [11]. M.
A.Saad et.al developed an efficient general-purpose blind/no-reference image quality assessment (IQA) algorithm using a natural
scene statistics (NSS) model of discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients.[15] The rest of the paper includes system overview
which includes the basic block diagram and its explanation. The experimental results are shown in the other section.

III. PROPOSED APPROACH

Liveness detection using image quality assessment uses the assumption that the quality of image used for spoofing attack will
have a different quality compared to the real images. Quality differences include difference in luminance, color, entropy,
structural distortions etc. The printed image and the camera images used for spoofing will be out of focus or blurred. The fake
samples lack the properties of real images. The paper proposes software based multi-biometric multi-attack system for the
protection of biometric system against spoofing. The key point is to find set of features that helps the classifier to classify the
image as real or fake. The system need only one input and does not require any pre processing steps. The system uses 25 image
quality features. The general block diagram of the proposed system is shown in figure 1.

Fig. 1: Proposed system architecture

A. Gaussian Filtering and Feature Extraction:

Gaussian filtering is used to blur the image and remove noise. It is a smoothing operator. It is used to compute the full reference
measures. The smoothed image and the input image are compared to obtain the full reference measures. 25 image quality
features are used in the paper. Among the 25 features, 21 features are full reference measures and 4 are no reference measures.
1) Full Reference Image Quality Measures (FR-IQMs):
In this paper we are using 21 image quality measures. It includes Error Sensitivity Measures, Structural Similarity Measure, and
Information Theoretic Measure. Error Sensitivity measures includes Pixel Difference measures, Correlation-based measures,
Edge-based measures, Spectral distance measures, Gradient-based measures. Traditional quality assessment approaches are
based on measuring errors. Pixel difference measures are computed on the basis of differences in the pixels between the two
images. These measures include Mean Squared Error (MSE), Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR),
Structural Content (SC), Maximum Difference (MD), Average Difference (AD), Normalized Absolute Error (NAE), R-Averaged
Maximum Difference (RAMD) and Laplacian Mean Squared Error (LMSE). Correlation based measures are obtained by
considering the statistics of the angles between the pixel vectors of the original and distorted images. These features include
Normalized Cross-Correlation (NXC), Mean Angle Similarity (MAS) and Mean Angle Magnitude Similarity (MAMS). Edges
and corners are the most informative parts of an image that play a key role in the human visual system and in many quality
assessment applications. Total Edge Difference (TED) and Total Corner Difference (TCD) are the two edge based measures
used. Sobel and Harris detectors are used to find these measures. The Fourier transform is another image processing tool applied
in the field of image quality assessment. In this project IQ spectral-related features: Spectral Magnitude Error (SME)and the

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Spectral Phase Error (SPE) are used. Gradients convey visual information which is of great use for quality assessment. Many
distortions affected in an image are reflected by a change in its gradient. Therefore, using that information, structural and contrast
changes can be effectively captured. Two simple gradient-based features are included in this system are Gradient Magnitude
Error (GME) and Gradient Phase Error (GPE).Human visual system is highly adapted for extracting structural information from
the viewing field. Distortions in an image due to variations in lighting should be treated differently from structural ones.
Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) is included in the 25 features. Visual Information Fidelity (VIF) and the Reduced
Reference Entropic Difference index (RRED) are the two information theoretic measures included in this system.VIF metric
measures the quality fidelity as the ratio between the total information extracted by the brain from the whole distorted image and
the total information conveyed within the complete reference image.[1].This metric assumes that natural images of perfect
quality pass through the human visual system of an observer before entering the brain, which extracts cognitive information from
it. RRED algorithm computes the average difference between scaled local entropies of wavelet coefficients of reference and
projected distorted images in a distributed fashion.
2) No Reference Image Quality Measures (NR-IQMs):
No-reference image quality assessment does not require a reference sample to determine the quality level of an image. These
measures are solution for assessing the visual quality of images in the absence of a reference image. These methods estimate the
quality of the test image according to some pre-trained models. Depending on the images used to train the model and on the
priori knowledge required, the methods are coarsely divided into one of three trends.
3) Distortion-Specific Approaches:
The JPEG Quality Index (JQI) and High-Low Frequency Index (HLFI) are the two distortion specific measures used in this
paper. JPEG Quality Index (JQI), which evaluates the quality affected by the block artifacts found in compression algorithms
such as JPEG. HLFI feature is sensitive to the sharpness of the image and is computed as the difference between the power in the
lower and upper frequencies of the Fourier Spectrum.
4) Training-Based Approaches:
In this a model is trained using clean and distorted images. Then, the quality score is computed based on a number of features
extracted from the test image and related to the general model. Blind Image Quality Index (BIQI) is the measure used here.
5) Natural Scene Statistic Approaches:
The NIQE is a completely blind image quality analyzer based on the construction of a quality aware collection of statistical
features related to a multivariate Gaussian natural scene statistical model.[1]
B. Classification:
Using the extracted image quality measures, the input image will be classified as real or fake technique. Here artificial feed
forward neural networks are used for classification. Feed forward neural network is a biologically inspired classification
algorithm consisting of a large number of simple neuron-like processing units, organized in layers A classification task usually
involves learning and testing data. During learning phase the weights in the network will be modified. All weights are modified
such a way that when a pattern is presented, the output unit with the correct category will have the largest output value. The FFN
uses a supervised learning algorithm. During the learning phase, a pattern will be presented at the inputs. The pattern will be
transformed in its passage through the layers of the network until it reaches the output layer. The units in the output layer belong
to a different category. The outputs of the network as they are now are compared with the outputs as they ideally would have
been if this pattern were correctly classified. The unit with the correct category will have the largest output value and the output
values of the other output units will be very small. For learning, we need to select 3 different objects: a FFNet classifier, input
pattern and the output categories. In the classification phase the weights of the network are fixed. Classification can occur by
selecting the category associated with the output unit that has the largest output value.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The experiment was conducted by using ATVS-FIr DB, LivDet09 database. Four classes of images are used: Iris, Fingerprint,
Face, Palm print, Finger knuckle print. A GUI was created to select the modality. First at all the images are trained and testing is
done. 10 images from each image class were taken and used for training. The feature extractions on each image are done by
using 25 image quality features. The values of 25 features were obtained and classification was then done using Feed Forward
Neural network classifier.

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Fig. 2: Input Image and different features (fingerprint)

V. CONCLUSION
This paper proposes software based multi-biometric protection system against spoofing attacks. For this purpose, a feature set of
25 complementary image quality measures is combined with feed forward neural network classifiers to detect real and fake
access to the biometric systems.5 different biometric modalities, Iris, Fingerprint, Face, Palm print, Finger knuckle print are
included in the paper. The proposed system is simple, fast, non-intrusive, user-friendly and cheap. It proves to be an efficient
security enhancing technology for biometric systems.

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