As you've probably heard by now, Apple's Touch ID—the technology behind the iPhone 5s's new fingerprint scanner—was circumvented over the weekend by a group of German security researchers. With little more than the kind of supplies you'd find in the home of your average computer enthusiast, the hackers claim to have fooled the sensor on their brand-new handsets into accepting a fake fingerprint that had been photographed at high resolution, printed out, and transferred to a piece of latex.
If true, this trick appears to cast some serious doubts on just how effective Touch ID is at keeping your information secure from ill-intentioned third parties. But despite those concerns, you shouldn't discount the usefulness of Apple's fingerprint-based security system just yet.
Being, having, and knowing
As I mentioned in an article I wrote for Macworld back in August, the idea behind using fingerprints to unlock your phone is that they tie your data to something that uniquely identifies you in a physical way. Unlike a password, which can be guessed and cracked even if nothing is known about its user, biometric data like fingerprints is generally thought to be impossible to reproduce without having access to the original.
More to the point, fingerprints aren't supposed to replace your passwords so much as work alongside them. The idea is that even if hackers manage to guess your password, they still won't have the finger that goes along with it. Ideally, for added security, you'd even want to couple a fingerprint (something you "are") and a password (something you "know") with a third item that is in your possession, like an access card or a device capable of receiving SMS messages (something you "own").
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