The Galaxy S10 might be the best Samsung has to offer in the smartphone segment at the moment, complete with an ultrasonic fingerprint reader which was also supposed to be more reliable and secure than its peers. Unfortunately, human ingenuity has again proved better as a 3D printed fingerprint model was all that was needed to fool the system and unlock the phone in the process.
The feat has been pulled off by an Imgur user who goes by the name darkshark9. The guy used a photograph of his own fingerprint from a wine glass and processed it using Photoshop. He then used 3ds Max to create a 3D image of the photograph to ensure the 3D model seems more realistic and closer to the real stuff.
And that is pretty much all, as the 3D model thus created, was needed to spoof the ultrasonic fingerprint reader on the Galaxy S10. What is also amazing in the entire development is that it isn’t anything exotic that is needed to fool the S10. All the software needed to create the thing is easily available while users just need access to a 3D printer to print out the stuff.
According to darkshark9, it took just 13 mins to create the 3D model, thereby underlying how easily the S10 can be fooled into believing a 3D printed model to be the real thing. This while the fingerprint sensor was supposed to be the primary security measure on the S10.
Samsung had also hyped how reliable its ultrasonic fingerprint reader can be compared to a capacitive sensor used in most other phones. The reason isn’t hard to fathom either considering that an ultrasonic reader creates a 3D image of the subject – the thumb impression in the case of the S10 – rather than a 2D image that a capacitive sensor is capable of.
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Unfortunately, that too failed to save the day for Samsung as a technology upgrade didn’t prove effective enough to save even it’s flagship phone from getting hacked so easily.