Do you secure your assets with your fingerprint? We are aware that there are many people that find biometric security preferable. There are a lot of people that secure their phones and data with fingerprint security because of the belief that it is impossible for someone else to access the data protected by their fingerprint.
Who wouldn’t prefer a simple tap with their fingers instead of typing in strings of numbers or words as security PIN? Nevertheless, what are the hazards associated with fingerprint authentication? Can your fingerprint be hacked? Is this type of biometric security a weak one that creates a false sense of security?
Convenience At A Cost
Ordinarily, securing your assets with your fingerprint should be fool-proof since your fingerprint is unique to you. However, what we have discovered is that fingerprint security is not as secure as you may believe that they are.
There are ways that determined hackers can actually hack your fingerprint and compromise your security. Do you doubt that? Let’s see how a hacker can access your data by hacking your fingerprint.
Points of Weakness
Every security architecture is as strong as its weakest point. Biometric security that depends on fingerprints has its own weaknesses, the most prominent being that you do not routinely protect your fingerprint.
Apart from using it to secure your phone or any other device that you deem necessary, you also leave your fingerprints on many surfaces which could be accessible to a hacker.
Easy Hack
For example, the handle of your car door is an easy mine of your fingerprints. Other surfaces such as your laptop screen, your phones, door handles, the coffee cup that you drank with at the coffee shop, the glass door that you touched and similar surfaces will easily become sources of your fingerprint to a hacker.
The ease with which your fingerprint can be hacked stems from the fact that the hacker doesn’t need to go away with any of the surfaces that you touched in order to hack your fingerprint.
They just need to photograph the surface to be able to replicate your fingerprint which can be used to hack any device that you protected with your fingerprint.
Hacking Your Fingerprint in Stages
- The first stage in hacking your fingerprint is getting a snapshot of the fingerprint from any source that the hacker can access.
- The hacker needs about an hour’s work in photoshop to develop a decent negative of your photographed fingerprint.
- The negative of your fingerprint so far developed will be printed on an acetate paper. This can be accomplished with the aid of a laser printer. A 3D structure of your fingerprint is accomplished with the help of a toner.
- With this on a sheet, a little glue is added to the paper to create a replica of your fingerprint.
Armed with this, the hacker can access the data that you have protected with your fingerprint biometrics. With your faked fingerprint on any scanner protecting your data, it can be accessed by the hacker. So if your digital assets are protected by fingerprint security, you can be sure that with the right hacker trailing you, you’re one step to losing them all.
It is advisable that you use more than one security feature and never depend completely on the security of your data with just fingerprint security.
The exchange that we recommend helps you secure your portfolio with 2FA.
