The Samsung Galaxy S5 ήταν η πρώτη συσκευή της σειράς S που έφερε ένα scanner δακτυλικών αποτυπωμάτων, και φυσικά όλοι οι φίλοι της εταιρείας ήταν πολύ ενθουσιασμένοι γι ‘αυτό. Όπως αποδεικνύεται, ο σαρωτής δακτυλικών αποτυπωμάτων της προηγούμενης ναυαρχίδας της Samsung φέρει ένα πολύ επικίνδυνο ελάττωμα.
Hopefully, you have never used the fingerprint scanner and still use a traditional password to access the device.
Why
A Forbes publication reports that FireEye security researchers have discovered a fairly serious security flaw in the Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner. The flaw permits hackers copy your fingerprints, and use them for their malicious intentions.
Researchers discovered that since its core is broken Android, hackers are able to read the fingerprint sensor information directly.
There is already one malware which in order to work will need to gain system administrator level access to the Galaxy S5. So it can recover the highly confidential data.
Fingerprints are usually stored in a so-called "trusted zone" on the smartphone, but using the technique we mention above, a hacker can access that area and retrieve what information it contains.
So every time the user just touches the fingerprint scanner, the attacker can access his fingerprint. Once hackers have the data they can use them to replicate new fingerprints from them.
FireEye researchers explain that the flaw in the Galaxy S5 is only found in earlier versions of Android, up to Android 4.4.
So, users are running Android 5.0 or above, they should not worry.
Οι ερευνητές δεν έχουν ακόμη ανακαλύψει εάν η ευπάθεια επηρεάζει και άλλες συσκευές με ενσωματωμένο scanner δακτυλικών αποτυπωμάτων, αλλά το problem it is believed to be quite widespread.
Samsung is already aware of the issue after it was announced directly by FireEye, and probably will have to prepare a patch to eliminate the vulnerability.
