iPhone 5S Fingerprint Sensor Hacked by Chaos Computer Club

The biometrics hacking team at Chaos Computer Club has successfully bypassed the biometric security of Apple's iPhone 5S' fingerprint scanner using a high-res photo of a fingerprint of the phone user taken from a glass surface and a latex mix.

CCC used the following method:

"First, the fingerprint of the enroled user is photographed with 2400 dpi resolution. The resulting image is then cleaned up, inverted and laser printed with 1200 dpi onto transparent sheet with a thick toner setting. Finally, pink latex milk or white woodglue is smeared into the pattern created by the toner onto the transparent sheet. After it cures, the thin latex sheet is lifted from the sheet, breathed on to make it a tiny bit moist and then placed onto the sensor to unlock the phone. This process has been used with minor refinements and variations against the vast majority of fingerprint sensors on the market."

Apple had previously stated that the biometric sensor would be harder to hack into than previous sensors, due to "the sensor scanning just beneath external skin layers to see the living layer of skin directly under the surface" however, CCC hacker Starbug states, "in reality, Apple's sensor has just a higher resolution compared to the sensors so far. So we only needed to ramp up the resolution of our fake."

CCC has released a short video showing the hack:

Play

Source: Chaos Computer Club

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