A practical study conducted by Kraken Security Labs reveals that not only is it possible to hack someone’s fingerprints, it’s actually rather simple and inexpensive to do as well.
Ever since fingerprints have been introduced to government records, the question has always persisted: how possible is it to fake or emulate them? Scientists state that the odds of any two individuals having the same fingerprints is incredibly unlikely. Of course, however, what do they really know? It’s not like they conducted study after study in the attempts of proving their own hypotheses, right? At any rate, fingerprint hacking got a lot more people interested in the art-form after the advent of spy movies like James Bond, which featured many such security defying leaps of logic and faith. In recent times, the incorporation of fingerprints into iPhones and Android devices has also led to a lot of individuals being concerned about how secure all of their information and albums really are. The answer posed by Kraken, however, is not all too much.
Kraken Security Labs, while maintaining its own records of clientele and cybersecurity threats, also conducts research in the field with the intentions of free publicity as well as doing some good for the general populace. The firm’s recent practical demonstration revealed that all one would need to recreate a fingerprint is wood glue, acetate sheet, a picture of the individual’s prints, and Photoshop. From thereon, Kraken elaborated that its test functioned without a hitch, which probably has a lot to say about the security of phones in general. However, let’s put all of the statements aside and see how this really functions.
To really simplify the concept, the fingerprints are taken from one’s choice of camera into Photoshop. From there, after having removed the background, turned the image around, and isolated the prints, they are then printed onto an acetate sheet, forming a 3D image with indentations. Wood glue is then lightly smeared across the print at hand, everyone waits for a while, and voila! You now have a piece of glue that also functions as a fingerprint. So much for the over-complicated shenanigans of Mission Impossible. It seems that all one needs are a five-dollar bill and a little bit of ingenuity.
Read next: Ethical Hacking has become a widespread profession as revealed by a new study
Ever since fingerprints have been introduced to government records, the question has always persisted: how possible is it to fake or emulate them? Scientists state that the odds of any two individuals having the same fingerprints is incredibly unlikely. Of course, however, what do they really know? It’s not like they conducted study after study in the attempts of proving their own hypotheses, right? At any rate, fingerprint hacking got a lot more people interested in the art-form after the advent of spy movies like James Bond, which featured many such security defying leaps of logic and faith. In recent times, the incorporation of fingerprints into iPhones and Android devices has also led to a lot of individuals being concerned about how secure all of their information and albums really are. The answer posed by Kraken, however, is not all too much.
Kraken Security Labs, while maintaining its own records of clientele and cybersecurity threats, also conducts research in the field with the intentions of free publicity as well as doing some good for the general populace. The firm’s recent practical demonstration revealed that all one would need to recreate a fingerprint is wood glue, acetate sheet, a picture of the individual’s prints, and Photoshop. From thereon, Kraken elaborated that its test functioned without a hitch, which probably has a lot to say about the security of phones in general. However, let’s put all of the statements aside and see how this really functions.
To really simplify the concept, the fingerprints are taken from one’s choice of camera into Photoshop. From there, after having removed the background, turned the image around, and isolated the prints, they are then printed onto an acetate sheet, forming a 3D image with indentations. Wood glue is then lightly smeared across the print at hand, everyone waits for a while, and voila! You now have a piece of glue that also functions as a fingerprint. So much for the over-complicated shenanigans of Mission Impossible. It seems that all one needs are a five-dollar bill and a little bit of ingenuity.
Read next: Ethical Hacking has become a widespread profession as revealed by a new study