Security News > 2021 > May > Crane horror Reg reader uses his severed finger to unlock Samsung Galaxy phone

A Reg reader recreated this scene in real life using his Samsung Galaxy A20 phone - and the severed tip of his index finger, parted from his hand thanks to an industrial accident involving a crane.

"I extracted from its grave of medicinal alcohol, dried it off and... eureka! ... managed to register my dead finger on my phone."

"And then as I suppose sitting in the hospital waiting, I put my hand in my pocket and found a finger in my glove with the little finger piece in the tip," said Higgins, who is currently recuperating at home.

Lucas Francese, biometric devices manager at Thales had no such qualms and told us: "In this instance there is no technical issue; the finger used for the identity enrolment for that specific phone is the same used for the authentication, so the system performed well."

Francese said: "The standard terminology in the market is 'Liveness Finger Detection', which stops fake fingers, such as those made by rubber or gelatine, but enables real fingers, dead or alive, to work. Currently there is no technology deployed in consumer devices that can detect if fingers are live or not; however, these do exist. Take our AI-based liveness detection solution for instance, it has been independently tested and verified, to ISO/IEC 30107-3 standard, and can detect a biometric presentation attack detection should the finger be real or fake."

You can indeed unlock a Samsung Galaxy A20 using a dead finger.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/05/06/samsung_galaxy/