Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner is a step up from passcodes for protecting iPhones, but it’s far from totally secure, as a researcher showed on Monday. Lookout Mobile Security’s Marc Rogers fooled Touch ID on Apple’s new iPhone 6 by crafting a false fingerprint from a do-it-yourself forgery kit that cost about $200 to assemble. Rogers and the Chaos Computer Club performed similar experiments when Touch ID was introduced in the iPhone 5s last year. To create his bogus fingerprint, Rogers first lifted a print off a shiny surface.
I'm pretty sure my friends, the cashiers at Panera Bread, would reject someone pulling out a fake hand and an iPhone 6 to make a purchase. Heck, even the guys and gals at Best Buy would send up a red flag. And I know my favorite bartenders at TGI Fridays would cry FOUL!
So, what's the point of this article? You guys are smarter than this!
On a scale of 0 - 10 (10 being best) I give this article a "0" on alerting Apple Pay users to genuine Touch ID threats.
The author repeated several times that his process requires a "perfect" print, and acknowledged that you can't get one off the iPhone itself. As a former police officer I can attest that such "perfect" prints do not exist in the wild.
Even using his own print, obtained in ideal conditions, from ideal surfaces, it took the author 8 hours to crack Touch ID. Way more than enough time to remotely wipe a lost/stolen iPhone clean.
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Researcher Foils iPhone 6 Touch ID
Posted by: John P. Mello Jr. September 24, 2014 11:42 AMApple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner is a step up from passcodes for protecting iPhones, but it’s far from totally secure, as a researcher showed on Monday. Lookout Mobile Security’s Marc Rogers fooled Touch ID on Apple’s new iPhone 6 by crafting a false fingerprint from a do-it-yourself forgery kit that cost about $200 to assemble. Rogers and the Chaos Computer Club performed similar experiments when Touch ID was introduced in the iPhone 5s last year. To create his bogus fingerprint, Rogers first lifted a print off a shiny surface.
So, what's the point of this article? You guys are smarter than this!
The author repeated several times that his process requires a "perfect" print, and acknowledged that you can't get one off the iPhone itself. As a former police officer I can attest that such "perfect" prints do not exist in the wild.
Even using his own print, obtained in ideal conditions, from ideal surfaces, it took the author 8 hours to crack Touch ID. Way more than enough time to remotely wipe a lost/stolen iPhone clean.