Fingerprint scanners are designed to bring improved security to smartphones and now researchers at the University of Michigan have managed to unlock a Samsung Galaxy S6 and other devices using an inkjet printer.
Two researchers from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University managed to used an inkjet printer to unlock a Samsung Galaxy S6 and a Huawei Honor 7 smartphone.
Kai Cao and Anil K. Jain used a standard inkjet printer, a standard black printer cartridge, plus special AgIC paper and three AgIC silver conductive ink cartridges. The fingerprint was taken from the smartphones and then scanned at 300 dpi, the image was them flipped horizontally and then printed on the glossy side of the special paper, it was then used to unlock the handsets, have a look at the video below.
This would mean that if someone get their hands on a stolen phone and the equipment above, they may be able to unlock the handset using the same method.
You can read the full research paper (doc) from the two researchers which explains how they managed to unlock these two smartphones using a standard inkjet printer.
Source Softpedia, Techmeme
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