Synaptics IronVeil Fingerprint Security Technology Review

Performance

Setting up the IronVeil is quite easy. You simply connect the mouse as usual via the USB cable and it works just as you would expect. However, to unlock the new features, just install the included desktop software, enter your Windows password and enroll a finger. To do this, you simply hold your finger on the sensor, I chose my thumb as it’s more naturally located to reach the sensor with minimal effort and I was good to go.

Log out of the system and this time, when it asked me for my password I simply moved my thumb over the sensor and was instantly logged it. It was far quicker than entering my password, which is actually 26 characters long, not that I’ll tell you what it says of course. I tried other fingers on my hands, I had my girlfriend try to log in, my kids, nothing, they didn’t get past the prompt at all. Soon as I grab the mouse back from them, ta da! I’m in.

Omnipass is the next cool feature here, as it’ll securely store all your online passwords. This is a great feature for email login, PayPal, Facebook and well, virtually any other website. The software is still in beta though, so Gmail and a few others are working just yet, but that will no doubt be fixed up soon enough, as even the purpose of this review is to put the basics to the test. What’s really cool is this isn’t just for passwords, it’ll also remember your usernames too, that means you no longer need auto-fill data stored in your browser, adding yet another level of security, as people would no longer see that pre-fill of your email, username or account number.

Omnipass certainly works well, just go to your favourite website, place your thumb on the sensor and you’re logged in. You can still use the traditional username and password if you would like, which is handy if you’re AFK and need to let someone else log in, but otherwise, no one is getting in without the sensor or your enrolled fingerprint. A lot of people use very few passwords, albeit tailored to each site’s password requirements and I’m sure we all know the pains of this. Say your password is “eTeknix” for most sites, but some sites need a number or a special character. You play that game of “was my password ‘eTeknix01’ or was it ‘et3knix~'” and quite simply, you never need to deal with that nonsense again. This means you can set your password to “£$%DSFLKJ£4dsflkj434j590df90g8934gsxcv9028242~@~” if you really wanted to, damn near impossible to crack and while you won’t remember it off by heart, you won’t need to.