Researchers: The smartphones fingerprint sensors are vulnerable to "masterprints"

A research team has found that so-called “masterprints” can successfully defeat fingerprint sensors on certain smartphones.

Departments at the New York University and Michigan State University created fingerprints digitally composed of many common features found in human prints, reported the New York Times.

Called masterprints, these were then used for presentation attackes on phones, with the team saying it could match real prints similar to those used by phones as much as 65 percent of the time.

“It’s almost certainly not as worrisome as presented, but it’s almost certainly pretty darn bad,” said Andy Adler, a professor of systems and computer engineering at Carleton University in Canada, who studies biometric security systems, told the newspaper. “If all I want to do is take your phone and use your Apple Pay to buy stuff, if I can get into 1 in 10 phones, that’s not bad odds.”

“It’s as if you have 30 passwords and the attacker only has to match one,” said Nasir Memon, a professor of computer science and engineering at N.Y.U.’s Tandon School of Engineering, who is one of three authors of the study, which was published in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. The other authors are Aditi Roy, a postdoctoral fellow at N.Y.U.’s Tandon School, and Arun Ross, a professor of computer science and engineering at Michigan State.

Stephanie Schuckers, a professor at Clarkson University and director of the Center for Identification Technology Research, noted that the researchers used a midrange, commercially available software program that was designed to match full fingerprints, limiting the broader applicability of their findings.
“To really know what the impact would be on a cellphone, you’d have to try it on the cellphone,” she said.

She also noted that cellphone makers and others who use fingerprint security systems are studying anti-spoofing techniques to detect the presence of a real finger, such as looking for perspiration or examining patterns in deeper layers of skin. A new fingerprint sensor from Qualcomm, for example, uses ultrasound.

Deloitte tech survay shows surge in fingerprint identification

A new report by financial services tech firm Deloitte has shown a rise in use of fingerprint identification.

The company's closely-watched 'Technology, Media and Telecommunications' report stated that biometric device security was identified as one key trend to watch out for, with the active base of fingerprint reader-equipped devices in the field set to grow.

In the report, the firm predicts that the active base of fingerprint sensor equipped devices will top one billion in early 2017.

It also predicts that about 40 percent of all smartphones in developed countries will incorporate a fingerprint reader as of end-2017. This compares to 30 percent as of mid-2016.

“We expect that at least 80 percent of users with a fngerprint reader-equipped smartphone will use this sensor regularly: this compares to 69 percent of users in mid-2016.”

Paul Lee, head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte, said at the at the launch of the report in Belfast.

Lee said: “Billions of smartphones and tablets are expected to be capable of processing and collecting multiple types of biometric inputs, including face recognition, voice pattern and iris scan in 2017, but usage of fingerprints will lead the way.”

But the Deloitte research also corroborated the findings of others in forecasting that global sales of tablet devices would fall by about 10 per cent this year, suggesting that demand was reaching a plateau, and that household adoption would end up being substantially lower than for other devices.

Source: Planet Biometrics