Samsung Galaxy S10 fingerprint scanner issue leads to banks cutting off the feature

Samsung Galaxy S10 users in the UK may find themselves unable to log in to their banking apps using the phone's fingerprint scanner for a while. This week, some UK banks began disabling the feature in their apps due to an issue with the fingerprint sensor, leading to false-positive readings. 

Folks on the Galaxy S10 subreddit began posting about the issue this week, with Natwest, Nationwide and HSBC being amongst the first banks to reportedly disable fingerprint authentication to log in to their respective banking apps. The main issue is that screen protectors can skew the S10's fingerprint scan, allowing other users to unlock and use the phone without having their fingerprint registered to the device.

This is quite a significant security flaw for the Galaxy S10, particularly for banking services and things like Android Pay. Fortunately, Samsung is aware of the issue and is preparing a software update to address it. The good news here is that it does not seem to be a hardware issue, which would lead to some bigger headaches on Samsung's part.

We don't have a date for the patch yet and it is unclear if UK banks will re-enable fingerprint authentication once it rolls out. We should hear more over before the end of the month.

KitGuru Says: Being able to trick fingerprint scanners on smartphones is a big security issue, particularly when connected banking or payment services. Hopefully Samsung's software fix can clear the issue up for good and avoid any hardware flaw concerns. Are any of you currently using a Galaxy S10? Has your bank disabled fingerprint authentication for logging in? 

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