Creating effective fingerprint artefacts: a cooperative and a non-cooperative method for bypassing capacitive and optical sensors with high success rate

Many Presentation Attack Detection methods (PAD) were introduced recently to enhance the security of biometric sensors, however, most of them are not implemented in commercial devices. In this paper we present both a cooperative and a non-cooperative direct attack method to bypass fingerprint sensors (optical scanners, capacitive scanners) used in modern embedded devices. Using the cooperative method 86%-100% Impostor Attack Presentation Match Rate (IAPMR) can be achieved on optical and capacitive sensors using a combination of Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate -(C2H4)n(C4H6O2)n- commonly known as “hot glue” and Polyvinyl Acetate -(C4H6O2)n- commonly known as “white glue” or “school glue”. The cooperative method takes 5–10 minutes and costs no more than $5 which makes it very lucrative and accessible to anyone. We were able to achieve these high success rates on the latest hardware such as the Windows Hello Framework or certified high security devices. Using the non-cooperative method we were able to achieve 98% IAPMR on optical sensors. During the experiment the following devices were tested: Suprema Biostation 2, 2019 Macbook Air, 2017 MacBook Pro, HUAWEI P9, HUAWEI P20, Lexar F35 encrypted USB drive, ASUS Zenbook UX461F Z14, iPhone 8. The whole process is precisely documented and disclosed in this paper for the research community.