Spoofing

Any attempt to fool a biometric check with a fake.

For example, someone might hold a printed photo, a mask, or a phone screen showing another person's face in front of a camera and hope the system accepts it as the real thing.

Presentation of a physical or digital artifact, such as a printed photo, a silicone mask, or a screen replay, intended to be captured and accepted as a genuine biometric sample.

Spoofing attacks come in several common forms:

• Print attacks use a photo on paper.
• Replay attacks play a photo or video on a screen in front of the sensor.
• Mask attacks use anything from a paper cutout to a molded silicone or 3D-printed face.
• Voice spoofing uses a recording or synthetic speech to fool a voice check.

The word has a different meaning in networking, where spoofing means faking an email sender or an IP address. In biometrics, it refers to faking a trait.

Spoofing sits next to terms that are easy to mix up:

• Presentation attack is the formal, standardized term for the same idea, and spoofing is the common informal name.
• Presentation attack detection (PAD) is the defense that catches spoofing attempts.
• Injection attack bypasses the sensor entirely, so it is a different attack from spoofing.