Abstract. In this contribution, the vulnerabilities of iris-based recognition systems to direct attacks are studied. A database of fake iris images has been created from real iris of the BioSec baseline database. Iris images are printed using a commercial printer and then, presented at the iris sensor. We use for our experiments a publicly available iris recognition system. Based on results achieved on different operational scenarios, we show that the system is vulnerable to direct attacks, pointing out the importance of having countermeasures against this type of fraudulent actions. Key words: Biometrics, iris recognition, direct attacks, fake iris