A team of cybersecurity experts has issued a warning: it's best to avoid holding up the "peace" sign in photos. Not because it's tacky or not cool, but for personal data security reasons. Indeed, this simple hand gesture can reveal a lot about your identity.
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Thanks to advances in technology and photography, simply zooming in on a high-definition photo of your fingertips could allow cybercriminals to recreate your fingerprints... and thus potentially impersonate you, because everyone has unique fingerprints.
Identity Theft and Data Security
According to the experts, an entire fingerprint can be reconstructed if the photo was taken less than 1.5 meters away from the person being photographed. If the picture was taken from 3 meters away, it's still possible to recover 50%.
Therefore, this data can be extremely useful to anyone who wishes to steal your identity. And because many security systems, like the one on your phone, are fingerprint-based, this makes it very easy to unlock them.
One obstacle remains: the cybercriminal would still need to have physical access to the fingerprint scanner. But it's probably just a matter of time. Technology is bound to catch up and give cybercriminals a loophole.
