Biometric scanner such as a finger print scanner offers higher level of security with greater convenience. On the iPhone 5S, we saw how its Touch ID scanner gets compromised by a fabricated fingerprint. Now it the latest Galaxy S5 with its new Finger print scanner appears to be fooled by the same trick. With the Galaxy S5’s fingerprint authentication support for PayPal, it does raise concerns if this is a safe way of keeping our online transaction accounts safe.
Similar case with the iPhone 5S, to perform this bypass is quite tough to begin with. Getting a high resolution finger print would require high level coordination and determination to make this happen. Another way to reduce such risk is by using a different finger for more crucial actions like authorising PayPal payments.
It was also pointed out that the iPhone 5S does slightly better security wise as it requires a manual password after it gets rebooted. However for the Galaxy S5, a thief with a fabricated fingerprint can gain as much access even when after the device gets restarted. Hopefully Samsung will address this issue by adding another layer of security onto it. Perhaps they could incorporate a “Knock-Code” like feature as an extra security measure in future.
Watch the Galaxy S5 finger print scanner being bypassed after the break.
You can also check out our hands-on demo of the Fingerprint scanner and also the comparison video of fingerprint unlocking between the Galaxy S5 and iPhone 5S.
