How Safe Is The Fingerprint Sensor On Your Phone 

How Safe Is The Fingerprint Sensor On Your Phone 

Infinix note4/pro come shipped with capacitive scanners and this scanners are embedded in the home button like other major manufacturers.

Convenience is all perfect, as good as we ever wanted, but what about security? Is it as great as convenience offered by fingerprint sensors on phones? You must have noticed that fingerprint sensor on your smartphone is quite smaller than the one in your office attendance systems. It is so small that it does not even cover full fingertip, still it does the job and recognizes your registered finger but not the one next to it. A full fingerprint is harder to spoof but unfortunately fingerprint sensors used on smart phones are usually smaller ones and set to extract and compare lesser numbers of fingerprint features to authenticate identity. On the other hand, fingerprint scanners used at high security applications scan full fingerprint and extracts comparatively larger number of fingerprint features, making it more immune against spoof attacks.

Fingerprint authentication system used on smartphones is based on partial fingerprint authentication, in which only a part of the finger is scanned and compared against the reference template. However, during the enrollment, your smartphone urges you to scan fingertip from all sides, so that later it can match whatever portion is scanned during the verification. Authentication systems based on partial fingerprints extract and compare lesser number of fingerprint features than full fingerprint authentication systems. Fingerprint authentication on mobile devices is as secure as manufacturers want them to be. Small sensors and partial fingerprint authentication are used to keep the device slim and compact as it adds up to the specification sheet of the product. Due to consumer demand of slimmer and compact devices, manufacturers tend to be more inclined towards smaller parts. Since expensive phones are expected to be slimmer and more compact, device makers too are left with no choice.

Conclusion :

Fingerprint security is subjective. It also depends on the criticality of data on your phone. If data on your phone is crucial, for example financial information, data related to the national security, etc. you may need more security than just a fingerprint biometrics in current scenario. If data on your phone is mostly your favorite cat videos, fingerprints shall serve as an adequate security method. According to Counterpoint Market Research , more than 1 billion smartphones with ship with fingerprint sensor in the year 2018. This will present an opportunity as well as a security challenge for service providers and manufacturers.