One of the most talked about features to come out of Cupertino is Apple's Touch ID, a fingerprint sensor for the iPhone 5s, but it appears the piece might have been tumbled by hackers.
Chaos Computer Club (CCC), who touted themselves as a "biometrics hacking team," claimed to have successfully bypassed Touch ID's security while using "easy everyday means."
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"A fingerprint of the phone user, photographed from a glass surface, was enough to create a fake finger that could unlock an iPhone 5s secured with TouchID," posted Frank Rieger of CCC. "This demonstrates - again - that fingerprint biometrics is unsuitable as access control method and should be avoided."
"In reality, Apple's sensor has just a higher resolution compared to the sensors so far. So we only needed to ramp up the resolution of our fake", said hacker "Starbug" told CCC. "As we have said now for more than years, fingerprints should not be used to secure anything. You leave them everywhere, and it is far too easy to make fake fingers out of lifted prints."
The Touch ID bypass comes as Apple stated Touch ID's technology is "some of the most advanced hardware and software" the Cupertino-based organization was able to put into any device.
In fact, the New York Police Department have reportedly rolled out officers to promote the latest mobile operating system, iOS 7, due to the improved security features. As Latinos Post reported, the NYPD stated iOS 7 cannot be reprogrammed if the Apple device is lost or stolen.
Although the improved security is a positive for some, it has inspired questions from politicians such as U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minn. Franken wrote an open latter to Apple CEO Tim Cook to answer several questions about the fingerprint sensor.
While iOS 7 launched on Sept. 18, iPhone 5s was released on Sept. 20 across Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, United Kingdom, and United States.
According to Apple, the iPhone 5s, with the iPhone 5c, sold nine million units worldwide during its first three days on the market.
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For the latest updates, follow Latinos Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO
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