You think fingerprint is a very secured form of biometric authentication? Well, think again because there's a new app in town that can be used by hackers to easily fool your smartphone and other devices that uses fingerprint scanner.
The hack which was showcased by Tencent Security X-Lab team at a hacking event held in China, saw the hackers pick fingerprints left on a drinking glass to unlock some gadgets.
According to the South China Morning Post, the Tencent Security X-Lab team lead by Chen Yu, invited some participants at the program to touch a touch a glass which they did.
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Yu then took out his phone and snapped a photo of the fingerprints and ran it through their app to extract the data. He then created a physical version of the fingerprints in just 20 mins.
With the cloned fingerprints, he was able to trick three smartphones and two attendance machines equipped with fingerprint scanners at the event.
So basically, anyone that has access to this app can steal your fingerprints left behind on a drinking glass, extract the data from the picture and then use it to generate, create a copy of your fingerprint and then use it to unlock your smartphone.
Though Yu didn't reveal much about the app used in performing the hack, he however told the media that the hardware cost over $140 in total, while on the software part what is needed is just a phone and one app.
Furthermore, Yu claimed to have hacked three types of fingerprint scanning tech which includes; Capacitance (the physical fingerprint scanners found on most device), Optical (the in-display fingerprint scanner found on OnePlus smartphones), and Ultrasonic (this is the in-display fingerprint tech found on the Samsung Galaxy S10 series).
Yu also claimed to be the first to hack the Ultrasonic fingerprint sensor which isn't true at all. The Ultrasonic fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S10 was accidentally hacked by a UK woman who used a cheap screen protector from eBay last month who bought .
Samsung later addressed the embarrassing issue in an update to the Galaxy S10 and Note 10.