Logon intermittently bypasses Windows Hello Fingerprint

Jake,

Unless you plan to never actually shutdown your LG laptop go ahead if restarting all the time works for you. I would be leary of that, though given my experience.

By the way I had the SAME problem with my LG laptop purchased in 2019 and finally gave up on using the Fingerprint for the PIN instead. When I purchased the current LG laptop in 2023 I had hoped the problem was fixed, but no. When I first tried solving the issue in August 2023 with the current laptop I also tried the 'fix' of just doing a restart and not a shutdown. It worked for a while and then would suddenly go straight to the desktop. As I like to actually do shutdown my laptop, I just went back to shutdown and using a PIN. I have never had it go straight to the desktop using shutdown and a PIN. And I feel safe knowing my laptop is secure.

Note my response to Rob, below.

Jan S~L

Jan SL,

I briefed through the first and last page of your thread, so may have missed something, but I'm wondering if by any chance you might have any sort of external USB device attached to your device either intermittently or all the time?

The reason I ask is because the following 2 articles I'll reference both discuss a known issue with manufacturer's implementations of a Windows Hello Fingerprint reader that was discovered by a research group at Microsoft's request and published after they presented at Microsoft's BlueHat conference last October, with these articles coming out in late November.

Security Researchers Have Bypassed Windows Hello Fingerprint Login

Microsoft’s Windows Hello fingerprint authentication has been bypassed - The Verge

Though the articles are somewhat technical, the key item I noticed is that their MitM attack used an added USB device to simulate being a fingerprint reader device, which since the manufacturer's didn't properly code to check for this possibility, apparently allowed the researchers to trick Windows Hello into thinking the USB code was supporting additional fingerprint data (and possibly another reader, I'm not certain from the articles), but the key issue being they managed to bypass Windows Hello using these various tricks.

Based on this, I'm wondering if maybe the LG implementation of Windows Hello is simply so bad that it not only allows something similar to the above, but the mere fact that some sort of external USB device like a flash drive, or maybe an external mouse or other interface that also requires a driver, is being confused and thus read instead of the fingerprint reader, resulting in a false trigger and Windows Hello acceptance of that other USB connected device as if it were the fingerprint reader itself.

So, since you're having some discussions with others with similar issues lately, I thought I'd chime in with this potential idea, since based on your lack of success so far and what I just read in those articles above, I suspect this is something at least as badly implemented in hardware and software as those articles describe.

If you do have such an externally attached USB device, I'd suggest removing it temporarily, if possible, to see whether the issue goes away, and if so, whether reintroduction of the device makes the problem return. If it does, I'd still leave the fingerprint reader disabled in Windows Hello, but at least you'd know what causes it and could report both here and to LG Support via their forums as well in order to get them looking into a potential software fix with Microsoft if that's possible.

Rob

I have an LG Gram 17 with the same issue. The fingerprint logon works when restarting, but when shutting down and starting, it bypasses the fingerprint logon and starts windows automatically.

Cage0022,

Yes, I have removed and re-added the Fingerprints on numerous occasions. It solved nothing. I tried several scans on the same finger and several scans on different fingers the outcome is the same, it might work for a couple days (my longest stretch was six) then it fails and goes directly to the desktop, no fingerprint, no PIN needed. :-(

I think TheManiac had a totally different issue. They say that they had problems because the fingerprint driver kept getting removed. It's a given, if you don't have a driver installed, you won't ve able to use your fingerprint. NOT MY ISSUE. No problem with the driver, in fact I uninstalled and re-installed it several times, even reaching out to LG to send me a new one. Problem remained.

The initial response after I posted this message back in August gave multiple steps to try. I did them all, many times. The outcome was the same as every other solution posted here. It didn't work. The ONLY solution at this point, especially if you have an LG Laptop, is to resign yourself to using a PIN, if you want your computer safe, that is.

Cheers,

Jan S~L

?? Not sure what you mean:

"did try rescanning ...only good reason ..." ?