Abstract
This paper pioneers an experimentation on assessing security and performance of a well-established biometric authentication protocol. Using the gold standard in software reliability, a path-oriented software quality control tool, the work exploits the attack surface leveraging path analysis. The test not only identifies security vulnerabilities in a system but also pinpoints those vulnerabilities at real security risk to optimize resource allocation. The automated holistic examination of the authentication process reveals a weakness in the biometric authentication protocol at study. The attack map generated from the analysis directs its improvement. Reexamination validates the security of the protocol. The work also studies the computational complexity of the protocol, thereby, recommends the key length suitable to biometric authentication for wireless body area networks.