Samsung Galaxy S10

Galaxy S10 bug lets strangers bypass your fingerprint scan, Samsung admits

A fix is on the way “soon”
Life
Samsung has gone with an ultrasonic sensor on the Galaxy S10+, and it has its issues. Credit IDGNS

18 October 2019

The Galaxy S10 should be free of bugs by this point, but Samsung has admitted that a pretty big one is still out there. According to the company, some third-party screen protectors could allow anyone to bypass your in-display fingerprint authentication.

The bug was first reported by The Sun , after it was tipped off by a reader. Lisa Neilson, from Castleford, West Yorkshire, bought a cheap “gel cover” to protect her Galaxy S10’s screen, she quickly learned that she could use any of her fingers to unlock it, despite only registering her right thumb. Her husband was also able to unlock her phone with an unregistered fingerprint. After calling Samsung, the company admitted it was a security bug and said it would investigate the problem.

It is unclear how the security snafu works, but presumably some screen protectors will leave enough of the contours of your fingerprint behind to trick the scanner into thinking your finger is the one being scanned. Once the system picks up the print, it automatically unlocks the phone.

While it works on a fix, Samsung has advised against using third-party accessories with your Galaxy S10: “We are aware of the case of S10’s malfunctioning fingerprint recognition and will soon issue a software patch… We recommend all customers to use Samsung authorised accessories, specifically designed for Samsung products.”

The Galaxy S10 uses an ultrasonic in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor that uses sound to read your fingerprint rather than light. In my testing I found it to be finicky and unreliable, though I was not able to reproduce this bug. Google’s new Pixel 4 is one of the first US Android phones to dump the fingerprint sensor entirely in favour of 3D facial recognition, so the S10 might be one of the last phones to use the tech. In the meantime, however, you might want to be careful about what you put on your phone’s screen.

IDG News Service

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