Galaxy S9 Could Get a More Secure Iris Scanner, Says New Report
2018 is almost here, and with the new year, new rumors about the next Samsung flagship phone line are coming up. One report among them brings up the interesting news that Samsung could be packing a better iris scanner into next year's Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Biometric security has been a tricky field for phone makers, with even Apple resorting to an odd-looking notch for the iPhone X just to make Face ID work. Samsung's own approach uses iris scanning to authenticate users, but that had its own issues as well.
To beef up the security of next year's Galaxy handsets, the company could be including improved iris scanners in the new models, according to a report by The Korea Herald via XDA Developers. The company first introduced iris security technology to their users with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.
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The same technology is now in use, with a few improvements, with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.
"The Galaxy S9's iris scanner will have an improved camera lens and functions to make it better [at recognizing] the eyes of users," according to the report. The camera used to capture images of the user's iris could be improved to 3 megapixels, up from the current 2-megapixel scanners used in the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8.
Earlier this May, a group of hackers in Germany was able to figure out a way to fool the iris recognition lock of their Samsung Galaxy S8. All it took was a photo of the phone's owner, printed in such a way that it shows a close-up of the person's eye, and simply placed a clear contact lens on it.
This fake "eye" was enough to convince the unit to unlock itself. "Under some circumstances, a high-resolution picture from the internet is sufficient to capture an iris," Dirk Engling, representing the Chaos Computer Club that demonstrated the technique, explained the risk.
