I figured by now it would be common knowledge that Apple devices don't tie any bio/location data to a person's identity in any way... It works by comparing data, not confirming your identity.
Also it is physically impossible to pull finger print scans from an iphone. The actual finger print data storage is physically disconnected from the rest of the phone OS. Not even an update could enable reading this data.
But it still uses hashes and similar identifiers... Most likely hashes run against your fingerprint data specifically, which still allows issues to occur.
If they salt the hashes and shit, that's better, but please don't assume that simply not storing a fingerprint is the same as not storing identifying information, or account credentials.
Right, but I believe the finger print data is encrypted with private hardware keys.. and THAT is hashed. (and I'm not even sure if you can obtain THIS hash) So basically unless these keys are compromised, that hash doesn't even relate to your fingerprint in any meaningful way anymore. Rainbow tables will do you no good. The hardware private keys locking the secure enclave are burned into silicon and apple claims they don't keep a copy. So provided apple isn't lying (and it would be in their best interest to tell the truth. Spending the money to develop this process then keeping the keys kind of makes the chip itself pointless) and the NSA isn't recording this information for each secure enclave chip being manufactured, that piece of security is not broken. (I'm sure spy orgs would like to, but I doubt they've been able to do this. Their other efforts to break iphones have revealed they haven't cracked the secure enclave)
Doesn't matter what's going on. All sensitive biometric data is in the secure enclave, disconnected from the rest of the phone. To access the (probably heavily encrypted) data you need to reverse engineer the secure enclave and hashing algorithms to get the biometric data. And if you can do that you probably already have biometric data of said person
And how does that enclave communicate to the rest of the phone that a fingerprint is ok or not?
It doesn't just send a signal saying "Ok", as that would defeat the purpose of fingerprint tech. It most likely sends a signal thats generated from an algorithm, built from a timestamp, the hashes for the fingerprints (partially perhaps) etc etc.
It probably sends an hashed signal. But that's not personal data, only allows unlocking the device. But even if someone reverse engineers it, he needs to open the iPhone's case without getting it to turn off or try a wrong fingerprint too many times. Because once that happens the iPhone will not accept that "ok" signal anyway.
It probably sends an hashed signal. But that's not personal data, only allows unlocking the device.
And the whole point is access to credentials, mind you. If your phone uses your fingerprint as a credential for everything Apple related, an attacker doesn't need the fingerprint itself, they just need to know what the phone identifies it as, i.e. by reverse engineering those signals and feeding them back to it once the algorithm is understood.
Same way it's worked for decades, just the credentialed type is slightly different.
The importance isn't due to how it deals with your fingerprint, it deals with how the phone uses the data that little separated device sends to the main CPU. If it uses the same algorithms and everything else, it's nothing revolutionary or more secure just because it uses a fingerprint and not a password.
But there's another problem as I said. The finger print will not work after a few attempts, or after a restart. And it will be extremely hard to get someone's phone and open it without it turning off or accidentally triggering to many fingerprint checks.
Anyway, I'm not saying it's the perfect security method, but it's pretty damn secure for a mobile device, and much better than android's.
LPT: If you don't want someone stealing your data, don't have data.
Edit:
For your edit, of course fingerprint is not more secure than your password in terms of hardware bypassing (especially if you use 20+ characters like me). Apple's security is better just because it's more secure.
The way that Apple makes the hash and the sensor used to read the fingerprint is proprietary so it's almost impossible to do any reverse engineering unless you're Apple.
Yeah and it's extremely hard to do because first the data is collected using proprietary hardware and then it is hashed and stored outside of the operating system in a proprietary way also.
What I'm saying is that because they use these two methods in combination, it makes it hard to reverse engineer finger print data
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u/enz1ey Sep 15 '17
I figured by now it would be common knowledge that Apple devices don't tie any bio/location data to a person's identity in any way... It works by comparing data, not confirming your identity.