Apple launched the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C last week to record sales for any iPhone device thus far. While both phones come with incredible new features, as well as the new iOS 7 mobile operating system, the biggest new update to the device's hardware is the biometric Touch ID fingerprint scanner. With the device only out a few days, it seems surprising that anyone would have already found a way to bypass the technology. However, it seems nothing creates incentive like a little bit of money.
Nick DePetrillo (@NickDe) tweeted a challenge to hackers that read: "I will pay the first person who successfully lifts a print off the iPhone 5S screen, reproduces it and unlocks the phone in < 5 tries $100." He then created a website istouchidhackedyet.com, which invited others to try their hand at hacking the device. Now after less than a week with the new device in hand, the collective reward of dollars, bitcoins and booze has been claimed.
In a blog post dated last Saturday, Germany's venerable Chaos Computer Club announced that their biometrics hacking team had successfully unlocked an iPhone 5S using a fake fingerprint, according to reports from PCMag's Security Watch.
"A fingerprint of the phone user, photographed from a glass surface, was enough to create a fake finger that could unlock an iPhone 5S secured with Touch ID," the post said. "This demonstrates - again- that fingerprint biometrics is unsuitable as access control method and should be avoided."
The winner of the loot offered by Nick DePetrillio will go to a hacker by the name of Starbug, who plans to give the rewards to a CCC spinoff called Raumfahrtagentur. PCMag has calculated the total cash reward from the website to be $8,364.01, 100 euros and the bitcoin equivalent of another $2,779. Other offerings include seven bottles of wine and liquor, a free patent application for the technique and a "dirty sex book."
For more details on the hack and the competition surrounding it. Check out PCMag's article HERE.
