This isn’t a good look: Samsung’s Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner has been out in the wild for less than a week, and already someone has been able to bypass it using one of the simplest exploits ever to come through the biometric industry.
German boffins have already figured out that you can trick the fingerprint sensor with a rudimentary copy of a print swiped over the reader.
By using a wood glue finger dummy template (which had previously worked on an iPhone 5s), boffins were able to lift a print and use it to unlock the phone.
Worryingly, that also means that your PayPal account — the one that can be unlocked and verified with your fingerprint — is also at risk thanks to the simplicity of the scanner.
Perhaps it’s best to stick to a complex password if you want to keep your phone really safe. [Heise.de]