<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Hi,<div><br></div><div>I wonder whether disclosure of a fingerprint is a vulnerability or not.</div><div><br></div><div>Recently, I posted an issue about 'disclosure of a fingerprint' on several community, such as upstream, various Linux distributions, and oss-security.</div><div>- @Upstream: <a href="https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libfprint/fprintd/issues/16">https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libfprint/fprintd/issues/16</a><br></div><div><div>- @Ubuntu: <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fprintd/+bug/1822590">https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fprintd/+bug/1822590</a></div><div>- @Fedora: <a href="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1693357">https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1693357</a></div><div>- @Debian: <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=926749">https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=926749</a></div><div>- @openSUSE: <a href="https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/701312">https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/701312</a></div></div><div>- @oss-security: <a href="https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/04/23/3">https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/04/23/3</a></div><div><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div>Some said that disclosure of a fingerprint is not a vulnerability.<br></div><div>Even they considered that a fingerprint is just akin to username, rather than password.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.3333px;text-align:justify;white-space:pre-wrap">Recently, fingerprints are very popularly used these days in mobile banking or healthcare industry, as an authentication schemes. </span><br></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.3333px;text-align:justify;white-space:pre-wrap">Leakage of fingerprints is regard to severe issue and thus commercial vendors that use fingerprints are now moving to a more secured design.</span><br></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;white-space:pre-wrap">Moreover, I found several issues and efforts to deal with information leakage of fingerprints as follows.</span></font></div><div><br></div><div>1. In Microsoft's Windows Hello, fingerprint data is kept locally on user's PC in an encrypted way.<br></div><div><div>(see <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4468253/windows-hello-and-privacy-microsoft-privacy" target="_blank">https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4468253/windows-hello-and-privacy-microsoft-privacy</a>)<br></div><div><br></div><div>2. Lenovo's Fingerprint Manager Pro also stores user's fingerprints encrypted in its local environment.</div><div>In this regard, a flaw was discovered in Lenovo Fingerprint Manager Pro (see CVE-2017-3762).</div><div>(see <a href="https://thenextweb.com/security/2018/01/26/lenovo-fingerprint-manager-flaw-windows/" target="_blank">https://thenextweb.com/security/2018/01/26/lenovo-fingerprint-manager-flaw-windows/</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>3. Moreover, FireEye researchers Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang outlined new ways to attack Android devices to extract user fingerprints at Black Hat USA 2015 (see Fingerprints On Mobile Devices: Abusing and Leaking?).</div><div>(see <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-can-remotely-steal-fingerprints-from-android-phones/" target="_blank">https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-can-remotely-steal-fingerprints-from-android-phones/</a>)</div><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div>In addition, fingerprints are usually associated with every citizen's identity and immigration record.</div><div>It would be a hazard if the attacker can remotely harvest fingerprints in a large scale.<br></div><div>It also allows the attacker to impersonate a legitimate authentication/identification by using stolen fingerprints.<br></div><div>Currently, fingerprints is still working on various authentication/identification system.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Indeed, <span class="gmail-u_word_dic" style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">it</span><span style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial"> </span><span class="gmail-u_word_dic" style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">is</span><span style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial"> </span><span class="gmail-u_word_dic" style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">quite</span><span style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial"> </span><span class="gmail-u_word_dic" style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">confusing.</span></div><div><br></div><div>In short, please let me know whether disclosure of a fingerprint is a vulnerability or not, to accomplish freedesktop's goal of securing the usage of fingerprints to authenticate the user.</div><div><br></div><div>Sincerely,</div><div>Seong-Joong Kim</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>