{"id":243,"date":"2015-03-14T17:43:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T17:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeuchill.org\/?p=243"},"modified":"2015-03-14T17:43:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T17:43:05","slug":"biometrics-researchers-race-to-stay-one-step-ahead-of-hackers-passcode-january-13-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"Biometrics researchers race to stay one step ahead of hackers \/ Passcode, January 13, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

As hackers find new ways to break into devices that use retina scans or fingerprints as passwords, researchers are quickly improving biometrics technology. They say the trick is teaching machines to become better at recognizing life.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It wasn’t the first time the Chaos Computer Club<\/a> exposed vulnerabilities in fingerprints as passwords. But it was the first time since Apple Inc.<\/a> released its increasingly popular pay-by-fingerprint Apple Pay system.<\/p>\n

At the club’s annual conference late last month, CCC member Jan “Starbug” Krissler showed<\/a> how to reconstruct convincing enough prints from surreptitiously taken\u00a0photographs to dupe fingerprint scanners. The club, known for cutting-edge research, promoted Mr. Krissler’s talk on their German-language site in a way that would strike fear into the heart of anyone working on \u2013 or promoting \u2013 fingerprint security: “Fingerprint biometrics [are] finally only a safety placebo.”<\/p>\n

Biometric security is the use of human attributes such as fingerprints, iris scans, and facial features to verify identity. The field of biometrics is wider \u2013 the Fitbit relies on biometrics \u2013 but in common parlance, \u201cbiometrics\u201d is mostly used for authentication. It’s often touted as the eventual replacement for passwords by a group who see Apple Pay as the first nail in the password’s coffin.<\/p>\n

The cybersecurity coordinator for the White House, Michael Daniel, even declared he was on a mission to “kill the password dead<\/a>.” He’s not alone: Passwords are clumsy, forgettable, typo-prone, unloved, and unlovable. Biometrics is the opposite. Using physical attributes is impossibly convenient \u2013 just try forgetting a password when your finger is the password.<\/p>\n

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Krissler effectively muted the excitement. After his talk, a Los Angeles CBS affiliate proclaimed: “Experts Warn Fingerprints Easier To Hack Than Old-Fashioned Passwords<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

But fingerprints, faces, retinas, and all kinds of biometric indicators have been easy to forge as long as there have been methods to use them as identification. Go back 20 years to the movie “Sneakers,” and the big heist hinged on a tape recorder beating voice identification. People leave fingerprints all over the place. We show our faces in public. There’s plenty of opportunities for physical identity to be replicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy password is in my head, and if I’m careful when I\u2019m typing, I\u2019ll stay the only one who knows it,\u201d said Krissler, during a 2013 German-language interview<\/a> discussing how the CCC had cracked the iPhone<\/a>‘s fingerprint security.<\/p>\n

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