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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Another Reason Not to Use Touch ID

September 28, 2015

Many critics say that passwords are dead. I don’t believe they are dead or ever will be. Certainly authentication methods need to improve and not just with strong passwords. Biometrics isn’t the answer either. Today, we should all be using multi-factor authentication whenever possible. The data breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is another example of why biometrics (especially fingerprints) should not be the sole method of authentication. It looks like the OPM data breach may have exposed fingerprint records for over 5.6 million folks. So now what do you do? You can’t replace your fingers or swap out eyeballs. All you folks out there that have configured Touch ID or a fingerprint scanner to unlock your smartphone should rethink the wisdom of that. At least with a PIN or passphrase you can always change it if it gets compromised. Good luck trying to change your biometrics.

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