Security News > 2021 > November > Biometric auth bypassed using fingerprint photo, printer, and glue
According to the Kraken Security Labs team, there is a way to clone fingerprints using inexpensive materials, with no high-end tools involved in any step of the process.
As the team demonstrated, stealing the fingerprint is a case of photographing it with any modern smartphone and then generating the negative on a photo manipulation software.
Once the printing is over, the synthetic fingerprint can come together by applying some wood glue on top of the print and letting it dry.
Through testing, the Kraken team found that the resulting fingerprint can fool state-of-the-art fingerprint sensors such as the one used in the latest MacBook Pro.
Fingerprints are a convenient biometric authentication method, but when it comes to critical applications, they should only be used as 2FAs in conjunction with a strong password.
"A fingerprint should not be considered a secure alternative to a strong password. Doing so leaves your information - and, potentially, your cryptoassets - vulnerable to even the most unsophisticated of attackers," explain the Kraken researchers.