New reports suggest that our fingerprints are not as unique and safe for security, as we might have otherwise believed. This makes almost all Android smartphones in the future susceptible to getting hacked. Studies by FireEye researchers Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang have outlined new ways to attack an Android device to extract the user’s fingerprint.

As of now, this threat is said to be confined to Android devices like Samsung, Huawei and HTC devices. The research shows four outlines for these hacks, and one them called the “fingerprint sensor spying attack”, is said to be able to “remotely harvest fingerprints on a large scale,” says [...]

Apple has updated its iOS Security document to include intricate, detailed information pertaining to the Touch ID sensor that is found on the iPhone 5s. 

Apple reiterates that Touch ID and its Secure Enclave store only data from scanned fingerprints, rather than actual images. Using a secure boot process, the Enclave – a coprocessor inside of Apple’s A7 processor – verifies and signs information independently of other iOS hardware and software.

All Secure Enclaves can function independently even if a kernel is compromised and each one contains a unique ID inaccessible to other parts [...]

The biometrics hacking team of the Chaos Computer Club has successfully bypassed the biometric security of Apple’s TouchID by using everyday means. 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 TouchID. 

Apple launched its new iPhone 5s with a fingerprint sensor, which was supposedly much more secure than previous fingerprint technologies.

In reality, Apple’s sensor has just a higher resolution compared to the sensors so far. So we only needed to ramp up the [...]