Hackers revealed that using biometrics to secure one's data or information is no longer safe after demonstrating how they copied the fingerprint of Germany's defense minister.
Jan Krissler, also known as "Starbug," performed the demonstration at the 31st annual conference of the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg. Unlike what we usually see in the movies where one has to get an object that the target has touched, Krissler only used several close-range photos of the defense minister's fingerprint to replicate it. He also used a software called VeriFinger to create the fingerprint image, according to Deustche Welle.
Krissler has been exploring the weaknesses of biometrics technology along with his colleague Tobias Fiebig from the Technical University of Berlin. German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen's fingerprint is not their first sample, as they did the same thing in 2008 to then interior minister and current Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
The hackers advised the defense minister and other politicians to start wearing gloves when speaking in public so that they can keep their fingerprints secured. Fingerprint identification has become a common security measure ever since Samsung and Apple integrated the technology to their devices, BBC News reported.
"Biometrics that rely on static information like face recognition or fingerprints - it's not trivial to forge them but most people have accepted that they are not a great form of security because they can be faked," said cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University to BBC News.
"People are starting to look for things where the biometric is alive - vein recognition in fingers, gait [body motion] analysis - they are also biometrics but they are chosen because the person has to be in possession of them and exhibiting them in real life."
The demonstration provided evidence that even biometrics can be hacked, but this doesn't mean that we should stop using them. After all, fingerprints are still more secured than passcodes.
