Japanese man fools biometric sensor with fake finger

A Japanese researcher has duped 11 supposedly secure biometric fingerprint sensors with homemade gelatine fingers.

Tsutomu Matsumoto, a graduate student at Yokohama University, claimed that fingerprint detectors could be fooled up to 80 per cent of the time by imprinting a random fingerprint onto a gelatine mould.

Using $10 worth of ingredients, Matsumoto made a gelatine finger model. Using a microscope and digital photography tools he lifted a fingerprint from a surface, printed it onto transparent paper, and then etched the image on to a photosensitive circuit board before pouring the gelatine over the etched print and leaving it to cool.

Matsomoto's findings were presented at an international security workshop in South Korea.

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