Researcher steals fingerprints by hacking smart lock
A researcher in Singapore has hacked the current generation of smart locks that use fingerprint readers.
“I wanted to find out how easy it would be to turn one into something evil: a device that can steal the fingerprint of a victim by beaming an image of it wirelessly to someone nearby,” said Dr Steve Kerrison, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity at James Cook University in Singapore.
“I targeted smart padlocks, because they’re the most portable kind of smart lock,” said Kerrison. “I call it a ‘droplock’ because the idea is to leave it on the ground for a curious victim to find and pick up, a bit like when USB sticks containing malware are left for people to discover.”
Related articles
- Post-quantum chip has built-in hardware Trojan
- French startup hacks secure chips for the common good
- Achieving ISO/SAE21434 cyber security using Secure Flash
The proof of concept, presented at the IEEE iThings 2022 conference, used a commercial lock reprogrammed with compromising firmware. If somebody picks it up and presses their finger onto the reader, it sends a copy over Bluetooth to a nearby receiver.
“This was easier than it should have been, but it requires some embedded systems and reverse engineering skills to pull it off the first time around,” he said. There are existing features and technologies that the device could have used to make the conversion harder, but they weren’t used. This kind of threat probably never crossed the mind of the designers or engineers.
Kerrison is interested in talking to a device manufacturers. The paper is at arxiv.org/abs/2208.13343
Related articles
- Open-source and modular WiFi phone is hacker-friendly
- Researchers invisibly hack security camera networks with IR
Other articles on eeNews Europe
- European tech in Intel’s RISC-V Pathfinder dev kit
- Technology fund looks to possible Newport Wafer Fab rescue
- Qualcomm hits back at ARM over lawsuit
- TinyTapeout boost for open source silicon chip design
- Siemens, Nissan team to digitise electric powertrain production
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
