As It Turns Out, Your Selfies Might Be Leaving You Vulnerable To Hackers (Great)

It seems like nothing we do these days adequately defends us from hackers, but who would have guessed flashing a peace sign in a selfie would put your personal data at risk?

Mashable reports a research team at Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII) have found cyber thieves can lift fingerprints from a photo to access your protected data. You know, like all the information on your iPhone that’s accessible using the infamous Touch ID system.

Experts are saying while it’s technically possible, there’s no need to panic right now.

The team at NII looked at social media users who shared lots of publicly accessible photos; so, if you have your photos in privacy lockdown mode, you should be in the clear.

Using a set of photos taken by a camera positioned about three meters away from someone, the team recreated the subject’s fingerprints accurately. NII researcher Isao Echizen told Sankei Shimbun that peace signs could be exploited without much effort.

“Just by making a peace sign in front of a camera, fingerprints can become widely available,” he told the newspaper.

If you’re rethinking your go-to selfie pose, don’t worry. Apparently, it’s not really that easy to do—just yet.

President of biometric verification company Vkansee, Jason Chaikin, said the expertise required means thieves would probably not be bothered. In other words, the crime isn’t worth the time.

Speaking to Mashable, Mr Chaikin said pulling off a fingerprint heist is improbable because thieves would actually need to have physical possession of your device. To hack into someone’s iPhone with their recreated fingerprints, you’d still need their home button.

Companies are responding to the possibility of fingerprint hacking by upping their security standards. They are experimenting with sensors that capture pulse and degrees of pressure when reading people’s prints, which should help weed out the fakes.

But yeah, maybe just to be safe find a new selfie pose?

Photo: Giphy and Fox