Researchers point fingers at Android phones' fingerprint security
Researchers from FireEye Labs have unearthed multiple vulnerabilities in the fingerprint scanner implementations of several Android handsets. The group's research paper was presented at the Black Hat conference last week, and it describes several vulnerabilities, some of which had the potential to allow for remote background collection of fingerprints. We say "had," because it should be noted that all of the companies mentioned have patched the issues presented in the paper. Other, non-manufacturer-specific vulnerabilities could still be exploited.
Android's fingerprint authentication framework originally provided only weak security. Fingerprint data was only as secure as the kernel iself-an attacker who manages to gain root access to the device can read fingerprints. Companies are starting to use ARM's TrustZone functionality , ...