Bangalore: There’s a new challenge for hackers around the world. Nick Depetrillo, an independent security researcher recently launched a website that goes by the name IsTouchIDHackedYet.com, which is a platform to crowd fund a bounty reward for the first person who can demonstrate a video on how to lift a fingerprint from any surface, reproduce the print, and use it to unlock the owner of that fingerprint’s iPhone 5S. Since its announcement, the bounty has raised to $3638 and counting as interested people are pledging to give various amenities which includes cash, bit coins and various bottles of wine and whiskey.

Soon after Apple released its latest iPhone 5S which features fingerprint scanner at the home button, there have been many questions raised on the credibility and safety of actually locking a personal phone with nothing other than the owner’s finger print. Although finger print scanners are one of the safest way to safeguard personal information, in the past researchers have succeeded in cracking the system by using silly putty, gelatin, corpse fingers and even a printed finger print on a sheet of paper.

But Apple guarantees that its fingerprint reader that goes by the name TouchID can sense beyond the top layer of a user’s skin as it includes a “liveness” test that prevents even a severed finger to gain access to a stolen phone.

To crack the case once in for all, Depetrillo came up with the idea to collect bounty not because he wanted to see Apple’s new fingerprint device get hacked but because he wanted to prove to people just how difficult a challenge it is to find a loophole with the TouchID.

“Basically people criticized the TouchId sensor as being insecure, thinking it was a typical fingerprint sensor from five years ago. In reality it’s a lot harder, and I was part of a vocal minority of security researchers who argued Apple did a good job”, said Depetrillo in a report to Forbes.

Updating the news, a hacker group from Germany, Chaos Computer Club may have cracked the bounty challenge. In a statement on their official website, Chaos Computer Club claimed to have bypassed the TouchID sensors on the 5S Smartphone by lifting off a finger print from a glass surface, photographing it into a high resolution image and creating a fake finger to unlock the phone.  

However, the bounty founder, Nick Depetrillo has updated the website IsTouchIDHackedYet.com with a “Maybe”, as they await a video confirmation from the hackers’ group. Many of the bounty players have escrowed their money to a third-party and if the video confirms an eligible hacking method, the bounty can be claimed by the hackers’ group.

Read Also: BlackBerry Messenger Goes Cross-Platform This Weekend

And Google Starts Searching Cure For Death!