MAFIS Overlay Network: Towards a Secure Network for Mobile Automated Fingerprint Identification System over Virtual Private Network (VPN)

The Philippines is an archipelago or string of over 7,640 islands in southeastern Asia. With the community's active support, the Philippine National Police (PNP) is entrusted with upholding the law, preventing and controlling crimes, maintaining peace and order, and ensuring public safety and internal security. There are currently 1,766 police stations across the country. With the geographical challenges, criminal identification procedures take time to complete. The Mobile Automated Fingerprint Identification System (MAFIS) addresses the issues. MAFIS is currently deployed and implemented in a cloud platform that can be accessed by authorized police personnel from the web and mobile application to expedite fingerprint identification procedures. In today's world, the internet has become the de facto standard for low-cost communications architecture, as well as a significant convenience for organizations and businesses seeking to expand their operations. Because the internet is widely available in practically every region, companies frequently demand it for their local presence. As a result, a secure route within this communication network is required to ensure confidential data crossing the public network. The fast rise of digital gadgets and their Internet connectivity has resulted in security vulnerabilities to user data. Security and privacy threats have become more sophisticated day by day, increasing the demand for an updated and highly secure medium to secure entities and their valuable information on the internet. Advanced measures and high technical skills adapted by attackers, security, and privacy threats have become more sophisticated day by day, increasing the demand for an updated and highly secure medium to secure entities and their valuable information into the internet. There are other alternatives available on the market today, but the Virtual Private Network (VPN) is the most popular for establishing a secure connection over the public internet. Constructing a tunnel between the sender and receiver provides the convenience of a shared network while also providing the security of a private network. The researchers took advantage of the opportunity to create the MAFIS Overlay Network, a secure network design for MAFIS that runs over a virtual private network (VPN). Two VPN implementations were considered on the strategy: a site-to-site VPN connecting all of the law-enforcement agencies' remote offices and a remote-access VPN for the scene-of-the-crime operatives (SOCO). Speed and performance tests were performed using the industry-standard method to ensure the framework's consistency for mobile and web applications. The overall performance scores were 99 and 87 for web and mobile apps, respectively. The speed and performance test results acquired on all of the system's modules in three different criteria in terms of performance, interaction, and visual stability are significantly better than the recommended value and are thus considered highly acceptable. Overall, MAFIS has satisfactorily passed the security and compliance tests conducted and is reflected as highly satisfactory.