iPhone Fingerprint Hacked by German Group, Apple Yet to Respond

By Myles Collier, Christian Post Contributor Monday, September 23, 2013

A group of German hackers have claimed to have hacked the new iPhone's fingerprint scanner only two days after Apple introduced the new smartphone.

iPhone security experts are taking the news seriously given the source, but have yet to replicate the hacking groups results.

German group that supposedly hacked the new iPhone is known as Chaos Computing Club, or CCC, and should the hack hold up amidst scrutiny then it will be very embarrassing for the tech giant given that it pushed the new technology to separate itself from its competitors.

"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," a hacker named Starbug was quoted as saying on the CCC's site.

The group said it defeated Touch ID by photographing the fingerprint of an iPhone's user, then printing it on to a transparent sheet, which it used to create a mold for a "fake finger."

CCC is one the world's largest and well known hacking groups and posted the video detailing their work on its website that showed a person accessing an iPhone 5S with a fabricated print. The site described how members of its biometrics team had cracked the new fingerprint reader, one of the few major high-tech features added to the latest version of the iPhone.

CCC said similar procedures have been used to crack "the vast majority" of fingerprint sensors on the market.

"I think it's legit," Dino Dai Zovi told Reuters" another co-author of the iOS Hacker's Handbook. "The CCC doesn't fool around or over-hype, especially when they are trying to make a political point."

Apple representatives have yet to publicly respond to the claim, but are expected to do so in the near future.