ElcomSoft has discovered a security hole in UPEK fingerprint reader software
Thursday, September 6, 2012 - 10:02
in Mathematics & Economics
(Phys.org)—Russian security firm ElcomSoft has posted a blog entry, courtesy of Marketing Director Olga Koksharova, claiming that UPEK software that was preloaded on laptops and other computers to run hardware fingerprint readers, has a huge security hole in it. In the blog entry, Koksharova says her company has found that the UPEK code saves user passwords in the Windows registry in a "barely scrambled" form, and thus is obviously not encrypted, meaning those that gain physical access to the computer can very easily circumvent the fingerprint login process and gain access to all user files.