After a Samsung Galaxy S10 owner in Britain reported this week that the fingerprint sensor on her phone could be fooled simply by adding a screen protector to the phone, Samsung has acknowledged the issue and promised to fix it with an upcoming software update.

Samsung

The Galaxy S10 is Samsung’s first smartphone to feature an ultrasonic, in-display fingerprint sensor that uses sound waves to detect fingerprint shapes.

Apparently all it takes to fool the sensor is a cheap screen protector which seems to allow anyone to unlock the phone by placing a finger in the appropriate space.

The issue seems to affect plastic or silicon screen protectors, so for now Samsung is recommending folks who are currently using a third-party screen protector either remove it and erase any currently saved fingerprints, or disable fingerprint recognition until a software patch is available — which could possibly be as soon as next week.

The Galaxy S10 also has a face unlock feature, or you could just resort to using a pattern, pin, or password.

Incidentally, the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL announced this week don’t even have fingerprint sensors — just a fancy new face unlock feature that’s apparently of limited use until third-party app developers add support.

via /r/Android, Reuters, and BBC

 

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,543 other subscribers