Greasy fingerprints can take the shine off a new touchscreen handset, and the smudges they leave behind could also leave it open to hacking, according to researchers.

When touchscreen devices are held up to the face, they pick up oil from the skin, explained researchers from the University of Pennsylvania at the Usenix security conference. The next time the password is entered, the pattern can be traced – and photographed – in the resulting smudges.
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The researchers tested Android handsets because the Google OS uses a graphical password, with users tracing a pattern on the phone to unlock the device. In ideal lighting conditions, the researchers managed to decipher the phone’s password 92% of the time by taking photos of the screen and bumping up the contrast.

Slipping a phone into a pocket isn’t enough to clean the password trail from the screen, the researchers found, so anyone wary of such an attack should take care to wipe their phone down frequently.

Cyber criminals have raided the accounts of thousands of British internet bank customers in one of the most sophisticated attacks of its kind.

The fraudsters used a malicious computer programme that hides on home computers to steal confidential passwords and account details from at least 3,000 people. The internet security experts M86, who uncovered the scam, estimate that at least £675,000 has been illegally transferred from the UK in the last month – and that the attacks are still continuing.

All the victims were customers with the same unnamed online bank, the company said. Last night online banking customers were urged to make sure their anti-virus software was up to date – and to check for any missing sums from their accounts. The attack has been traced to a ‘control and command’ centre in Eastern Europe. However, the nationality of the cybercriminals is unknown. The latest attack involved a Trojan called Zeus v3 which hides inside adverts on legitimate websites.

Once installed on a home computer, the programme waits until the user visits their online bank and then secretly records their account details and passwords – using the information to transfer between £1,000 and £5,000 to other bank accounts. The attacks began on July 5 and are still progressing, according to Ed Rowley, product manager at M86.

‘In the vast majority of cases, if people had kept their computer’s operating systems and software such as Internet Explorer up to date they would not have been attacked,’ he said.

You guys know what to do…as for the rest of the noobs?