Lenovo, Synaptics, Intel and PayPal are teaming up to replace passwords with your fingerprint

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
published

Lenovo has announced that it is working with Intel, PayPal and Synaptics to bring FIDO-enabled fingerprint authentication to its PCs. Leveraging Intel's hardware security and Synaptics' fingerprint sensor tech, FIDO authentication on Lenovo laptops would allow users to sign into FIDO-enabled services such as PayPal without the need for a password.

The ultimate goal, according to Lenovo, lines up with that of the FIDO Alliance itself: to combat fraud by replacing the password, which has proven increasingly vulnerable in light of a spate of recent security breaches, with more secure solutions. From Lenovo:

As the use cases for Internet-connected devices grows at the enterprise and consumer level, there is a critical need for highly secure, but unobtrusive methods for protecting identities, data and machines. Lenovo and Intel's shared hardware expertise allows for a unified, built-in security architecture that's more secure, private and hassle free. Likewise PayPal brings its authentication expertise and Synaptics their biometrics knowledge to deliver a much needed alternative solution to the password problem.

Lenovo didn't specify when we should start seeing these FIDO-certified laptops popping up in the wild, but this announcement might mean that our first peek shouldn't be too far off.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

20 Comments
  • Fingerprint is more vulnerable than password.
  • It's Lenovo, that's probably the intent.
  • Ironically to set up the fingerprint you normally still need to enter a "password" backup for the recovery. My friend had fingerprint setup in Galaxy A5 and phone could not read it properly so it requested at some point password that he of course forgot. He had to hard reset the phone.
  • Its not exactly just fingerprint. Its fingerprint AND a known device. Do you have any source that shows how its more vulnerable? Some random person in China could guess your password. They have to be in possession of your registered device to get in with the password.
  • Yes and know. You can't easily hack a fingerprint from the other side of the world. The Windows Hello facial recognition still seems to be the most secure login method. I don't know of anyone that has hacked it. It even recognizes the differences between twins.
  • Not if it's built in as a 2 factor system. You can hack my password, but hack my password and get my device, there's pretty much no system safe from that. So again, troll harder kid.
  • How are fingerprints more vulnerable? Is it something to do with the way the image is captured? Or is it because it's an image that can be hacked and replaced with another? (serious question)
  • Because you can lift a persons fingerprint and use that to get around the device. They are also vulnerable to multiple hacking methods.
  • Ah, ok... So capturing it on something like tape would be sufficient to fool a scanner. I would have thought they were better than that.
  • Finally
  • What if something happens to my fingers?
  • I wonder if this will also work with Windows Hello, since that is also part of the FIDO Alliance. That was the vision originally presented with Hello - that you not only unlock your device, but that it would protect your online accounts and eliminate passwords everywhere.
  • Does windows hello support FIDO standards? Pretty sure they said it was an aim at least
  • Uhh ... Hello!
  • The mark of the beast. LOL
  • Not quite. This is just integrating fingerprint readers into laptops with a standard that some sites use. But the tech world isn't too far off from implants in hands or foreheads; I'm giving it 50 years tops.
  • Fingerprint and iris unlocks are not protected under the 4th amendment like passwords are.
  • If your password is stolen, you can create a new one. But if your fingerprint is stolen...
  • And not just stolen. Governments are busy getting fingerprint data using various excuses.
  • I'm working on a new kind of operating system. It will resemble Linux in a sense that it has a much better way of delegating permissions. However, it's based on machine learning principles. It will re-harden itself everytime it detects a way of exploiting itself. Not AI yet, but my team and I hope it will become one. Passwords will be handled by an encrypted sub-container that is hidden within a maze of fake and real containers. All the passwords will be created automatically by an algorithm and matched with user's voice, photo, and fingerprints. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android