Fingerprint-Protected USB Sticks Cracked 166
juct writes "Manufacturers of USB sticks and cards with fingerprint readers promise us that their data safes can only be opened with the right fingerprint. In their tests, heise Security found that it is easy to bypass the authentication and get access to the protected data. This works by sending a single USB command, using the open source tool PLscsi, that changes the accessible partition. They found the vulnerability in several USB sticks that use the same chipset. The article concludes: 'The fingerprint sensors in the products mentioned above apparently only serve one purpose: they mislead interested buyers. They do not provide any significant level of protection. We can only recommend that these products not be purchased.'"
Mythbusters (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXyFmieZjiE
bad security (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Damned With Faint Praise? (Score:2, Informative)
A few weeks ago, they said the same thing for "encrypted" USB hard drives (with state-of-the-art "XOR" encryption).
Re:Mythbusters (Score:3, Informative)
Hardware-based security is often vulnerable (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mythbusters (Score:2, Informative)
I am honestly not surprised. Biometrics has a long way to go. Now when are we going to see retinal scanner thumb drives? *eyeroll*
Re:Hardware-based security is often vulnerable (Score:4, Informative)
You couldn't be more wrong about biometric authentication. You probably haven't seen the Sagem or Cogent sensors implemented well. It is the very rare organization who would actually spend the money to do the job right. A revision is necessary to make your statement accurate.
Cheap and dirty hardware security methods just aren't as secure as software-based encryption.
That's better.
Fingerprint scanners suck. (Score:5, Informative)
1. the sensor itself.
2. the implementation of the sensor. (e.g. sensor as a front end)
There are two legitimate sensor manufacturers in the U.S. and one very well-known French company all of whom do not sell to just anyone anywhere and at prices absolutely out of range for a TV show and the average company.
Another thing to keep in mind is even IF there was budget for a good device, (oh to dream) there are implementation issues that can make the hardware worthless. As is often the case, meaningful implementations tend to complicate practically all business/operations matters which is why no company bothers.
To generalize that all fingerprint scanners suck is just wrong.
Re:Watch a Sci-fi movie! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fingerprint scanners suck. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fingerprint scanners suck. (Score:5, Informative)
Then that's not the way it should be done. For one thing, while the angle of the print may change, the relative size will not.
I think you can create fingerprints based off of a formula. All you need is to supply a set of variable coefficients. The hash would be that set of coefficients for your formula.
It's been a very long time since I had studied fingerprints, and that was rather cursory.
From what I know, every print has at least one point. The alternative is that some prints have ridges going straight across, which doesn't sound right to me.
- Focus on the most prominent one or the one ranked highest in priority.
- Measure the distances between unique points and their angles relative to each other.
- A left loop will always be a left loop no matter the rotation, and has an apex.
- Same with a tented arch, except it will also have a triangular shape.
- A whorl has two epicenters of a given distance.
I never worked in the field, but the above plan seems obvious to me. I also don't have a large sample set to help refine that formula - maybe having two whorls or two similar loops or some other combo never happens.
With any authentication, the important thing is that it be easy to produce the key and make it very hard to fake it. Therefore, the biggest problem with fingerprint authentication is that the user keeps leaving their key everywhere they touch. It's like mentioning your passwords in plaintext within every conversation you have. One solution may be to use toeprints instead.
Re:Hardware-based security is often vulnerable (Score:3, Informative)
Out of curiosity, how do you do it? I've used a combination of soaking in acetone and physically chipping/milling the stuff away, but I'd love to know better techniques.
>The ONLY way to make these toys secure is custom chipsets. power up chipset and then only decrypt the contents of the flash after the 12 digit key was entered on the little pin pad. But nobody is going to make that.
Read about the Maxim DS3600 [maxim-ic.com] family of chips some time. Keys stored encrypted on-chip, chip's a microSMD so you can't get to the pins, has massive on-chip detection facilities for eg. case tampering, power glitches, and temperature changes, all of which trigger it to wipe all its stored keys and optionally wipe other things to which it's attached, and uses weird repeated XOR writes of the encrypted keys so they don't build up oxide charges that'd allow you to read the memory once you've torn it apart.
That chip's going to be hard to fool.
Re:Fingerprint scanners suck. (Score:3, Informative)