MSU Biometrics Expert Designs Fake Finger for Sensor Spoofing

Renowned biometrics expert Dr. Anil Jain is once again seeking to test the boundaries of biometric fingerprint recognition with a new experimental device.

In collaboration with doctoral student Joshua Engelsma, the Michigan State University professor has developed a fake finger design to spoof fingerprint readers.

As Jain explained to MSU Today, the device “mimics a real finger by incorporating basic properties of human skin.” It is composed of materials including conductive silicone – presumably to enable operation with capacitive sensors – as well as silicone thinner and pigments.

The device appears to represent a considerable leap beyond a spoofing system that Jain designed last summer to help police unlock the phone of a murder victim, an effort that brought the professor some renown. But his goal here is quite different, with Jain asserting, “It will help motivate designers to build better fingerprint readers and develop robust spoof-detection algorithms.”

The experimental device arrives as the mobile industry contemplates a shift away from fingerprint scanning and toward facial recognition for user authentication; nevertheless, fingerprint readers are commonplace across contemporary smartphones, and are finding further applications in other device areas.

Source: MSU Today

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September 22, 2017 – by Alex Perala