According to new research from Siemens IT Solutions and Services, only 18% of organisations with biometric measures currently in place are using them for logical access control – vital to securing IT equipment and data files.The huge uptick in the popularity of time-and-attendance access control systems, with their clean and easy calculations of ROI (return on investment) may account for some of this discrepancy.
Despite acknowledging the need for greater IT security in a climate of cyber crime and terrorism, biometrics professionals are opting for physical access control to safeguard rooms or buildings. This presents IT security threats to sensitive data within organisations and potential mobile IT security weaknesses.
Biometric ID management techniques do yield significant ROI for logical access control -- passwords don't reset themselves and the people you call get paid -- but it's more difficult to compute and is likely to make itself apparent over the longer term.
