How secure is your fingerprint lock?

This isn’t just a catchy headline, there is a whole different world of hackers who are waiting for small vulnerabilities in smartphone technology to hack into your most personal device. Every advancement in technology also poses new loopholes that threaten user privacy.

Here’s everything that you need to know about your fingerprint lock and how to stay safe while using it.

Current tech

The advancement of smartphone technology provides more and more conveniences but sometimes these might come along with few security concerns. Unless you have the iPhone 11 which did away with the fingerprint as a biometric scanner, it is possible that you are relying on your finger image to unlock your device and some of the apps within it.

Recently there have been many tests and cases wherein hackers / normal users have been able to crack into a device without requiring the use of an original fingerprint.

Most of the scanners in our smartphones or laptops are smaller in size than the biometric sensors used for security purposes. What this means is that the scanner can only read or scan a small section of our finger and later store it in encrypted storage on the device. This is the reason why we all keep on clicking and adding different angles of the print.

In general, a phone scanner will save 6 – 10 images of the finger. To unlock the device it needs to match one of the images that are saved. In other words, a small section of your fingerprint, in reality, is required to unlock the device and this is where it gets scary.

The scary stuff

Because of the above-mentioned flaw, it is not very difficult to hack/fool the scanner on the device to get access. Multiple studies and researches have been conducted where devices have been accessed without needing the original fingerprint.

Researchers at Michigan State University & New York University successfully generated what they call “DeepMasterPrints”. According to them using these prints researchers can unlock about 50 percent of the phones without requiring the owner’s fingerprints.

A study conducted by Talos Security Group spent a considerable amount of money to test finger recognition gadgets from Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, etc. The results show that fake fingerprints can deceive any device with an 80% success rate.

What can you do?

By no means we recommend not using a fingerprint scanner on your device, however, you can take a few precautions to prevent what matters the most. Don’t enable fingerprint access for any apps, esp for the banking or payment wallet apps.

Also, make sure you use a PIN that’s difficult to crack. Avoid your/spouse’s/kids’ birthday or your anniversary date or your car’s registration number.

Stay cautious and hang in there till the manufacturers figure out a way to make the sensors more secure.

Do share what you think about this technology and what are your suggestions around it.