UK bank Nationwide Building Society has disabled the fingerprint login option in its app for owners of Samsung Galaxy S10 phones. Another, NatWest, has completely removed support for S10 phones.
This is in response to a vulnerability in the ultrasonic fingerprint reader used on those phones. Samsung posted an official response, but the issue may be more serious than initially thought.
Good morning Robert, We’ve removed the app from the Play Store for customers with Samsung S10 devices. This is due to reports that there are security concerns regarding these devices. We hope to have our app available again shortly once the issue has been resolved. SY
NatWest (@NatWest_Help) October 20, 2019
It looks like the Bank of China has dropped support for Galaxy S10, Note10 and Tab S6 owners. Hapoalim Bank, one of Israels largest banks, sent out a notice to its customers who use an S10 or Note10 that it has removed support for fingerprint authentication as well. South Koreas KaKao Bank (an online-only bank) has warned its users to disable fingerprint authentication.
Samsung has promised a software update for early this week that should resolve the issue. Youll need to delete and re-register your fingerprints, however.
PS. the Galaxy Tab S6 uses an optical scanner and there haven’t been reports that it suffers from any vulnerabilities, so the Bank of China may have gone a bit overboard.
Haslinda has worked with some of the largest telcos in North America and Asia. She loves tech and doesn’t like iPhone
