NexID Biometrics LLC, the first company to offer liveness detection software for fingerprint-sensors on mobile devices, today launched its Mobile Live Finger Detection (LFD) application for the Android operating system.
NexID's Mobile LFD application ported to the Android platform means that makers of Android smartphones and other mobile devices can improve the accuracy and security of the devices' fingerprint-sensing authentication to greater than 95 percent.
Mobile devices with fingerprint scanners on the market today – but lacking liveness detection -- are highly susceptible to having bogus fingerprints spoof the sensors. Goode Intelligence, a U.K. research consultancy, has predicted that as many as 3.4 billion smartphones will be equipped with biometric sensors by 2018.
"At NexID, we believe augmenting fingerprint sensors with liveness detection is 'must have' functionality because it facilitates mobile commerce, providing both users and services providers with confidence that mobile transactions can occur safely and securely," said Mark Cornett, NexID's chief operating officer.
"While Apple validated the convenience of fingerprint authentication as an alternative to passwords on mobile devices, the spoof of the iPhone 5S -- and more recently the Samsung Galaxy S5® -- confirmed that the current level of security is vulnerable to spoofing," he added. "Clearly the layers of security for unlocking mobile devices and their applications need to be stronger to properly meet the needs of users, facilitators of mobile commerce and business people responsible for their companies' BYOD policies."
Cornett said NexID's Mobile LFD solution for the Android platform enables manufacturers of mobile devices and fingerprint-sensor technology, as well as mCommerce vendors, to add robust liveness detection to mitigate the vulnerability to spoofing and build confidence in the use of fingerprint authentication for mobile devices.
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