The police apprehended a group of 8 suspects believed to be behind the robbery of a branch of Barclays bank.
The criminals got away with £1.3 million but a spokesperson for the bank said that they were able to recover the amount and none of the customers suffered a loss once the police apprehended the culprits.
This incident dates back several months ago when a man claiming he was a technician convinced the staff that he would repair the computers. The man then installed hardware that later allowed the gang access to the bank’s accounts.
This is a great win for law enforcement but in an ever changing digital world, how much risk does cybercrime pose?
Biometrics
With the launch of the highly anticipated iPhone 5S earlier this week, concerns were raised about the safety of its fingerprint scanner.
On Tuesday, a group of German hackers who call themselves the Chaos Computer Club managed to break through the device’s security. Only two days after the phone hit the market and Apple’s device security measures have been breached.
On their website the group claimed their biometric hacking team took a photograph of the fingerprint from a reflective surface and then created a fake print that was copied onto a sheet of film. This was then used to hack into the iPhone.
A video was uploaded by the Chaos Computer Club showing how the phone was hacked using a copy of the fingerprint.
The hacker responsible for the break into Touch ID, who goes by the name of ‘StarBug’ stated that biometrics, especially fingerprints, are easy to hack because they are easy to obtain.
“As we have said now for more than years, fingerprints should not be used to secure anything. You leave them everywhere, and it is far too easy to make fake fingers out of lifted prints.”, explains StarBug.
A website call IsTouchIDHackedYet.com was created by security researcher Nick DePetrillo. A number of different users of the site pledged different amounts of money to the first person who successfully hacks into Apple’s iPhone 5S. The total amount is believed to have reached $14,000 US.
The Chaos Computer Club reiterated the notion that fingerprint security can easily be breached and that they hoped their video raised some sort of awareness. As it is very easy to copy a fingerprint and create an exact replica, many crimes have occurred around the world and the CCC may have raised important questions that many would prefer hidden.