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More than $15k in rewards offered to crack Apple’s iPhone 5s TouchID fingerprint sensor

TouchID-iPhone5S-fingerprint-sensor-01

As noted by BusinessInsider, a number of security researchers and other hackers have come together to offer rewards to the first person that can “reliably and repeatedly break into an iPhone 5s” through bypassing the new TouchID fingerprint sensor feature. They aren’t looking for a software hack, however, but instead want hackers to break into the device by lifting prints, “like from a beer mug.”

It’s not exactly a legit contest, as the creators of the site are only claiming responsibility for their own bounty offers. Their bounties come out to around just $200 of the approximately $20k in pledges listed on the site.

In order to collect, you’ll have to have video proof of the process. The site’s creator explained in the “terms and conditions,” which is actually just a series of tweets:

All I ask is a video of the process from print, lift, reproduction and successful unlock with reproduced print. I’ll put money on this… Enroll print, Place it, lift it, reproduce it, use the reproduction to unlock the phone without being locked out… satisfactory video evidence of the print enrollment, lift, reproduction and successful application of the print without locking out will do.

While there’s no way of telling if most of those offering bounties will actually payout, the largest pledge comes from IOCapital for $10K:

https://twitter.com/Arturas/status/380748248589148161

Apple said at the introduction of the iPhone 5s that “all fingerprints will be encrypted, stored securely and never uploaded to iCloud or its own servers,” but there have been a few questions surrounding how Apple’s new TouchID fingerprint sensor works.  Earlier this month Apple addressed security concerns and noted some features to prevent hacking of the fingerprint sensor:

Only that passcode (not a finger) can unlock the phone if the phone is rebooted or hasn’t been unlocked for 48 hours. This feature is meant to block hackers from stalling for time as they try to find a way to circumvent the fingerprint scanner.

You can check out all of the bounties being offered and learn more through the istouchidhackedyet.com site. 

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Comments

  1. Craig Shields - 11 years ago

    Would have thought it would have been a bit more than that if Apple are so sure about it’s security…

  2. NQZ (@surgesoda) - 11 years ago

    Looks like this is not needed as someone has already found an iOS 7 lockscreen bug

    So much for security and touch ID. How the F can they let stuff like this pass their beta testing and QA teams??? We’re talking about a company that is so rich they have almost two hundred BILLION dollars in assets, and they can’t even program a lock screen properly. Whiskey tango foxtrot?

  3. MaRico NoHands Spikes - 11 years ago

    Anyone into forensics?
    Anyone into high level security breaching(spies)?
    Anyone work at NSA?
    Quick cash to be made

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.