How Secure Is The Face Recognition Method To Unlock A Phone

The iPhone 8 keynote event is fast approaching and the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 is also around the corner. Samsung has already proclaimed that its Galaxy Note 8 will be featuring facial unlock features as well as the iris scan. Turns out that Apple is also very likely to introduce these features in the iPhone 8 which is scheduled to be launched on September 12. Both tech giants claim that these two will be the finest smartphones ever to exist in the market. But there has been so much fuss about the Facial Recognition security features especially in Samsung Galaxy S8 that are being exploited quite easily.

Experts claim that the Face Unlock method is a deceptively amazing feature that is full of vulnerabilities and can be fooled easily. As it turns out, the facial recognition method is much less secure and no way near as good as the fingerprint scan. It is even more insecure than the PIN, pattern or passkey method. You may have seen videos of people unlocking the Galaxy S8 face lock by showing it the picture of a person whose face has been registered. No matter how advanced it may get, the device can be easily fooled by showing the picture or video of that person. Apart from that, it is certainly not the fastest way to unlock the phone. It may take a few seconds before it gets unlocked and it may take even longer given the phone is in motion.

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How Secure Is The Iris Scan?

Samsung’s Galaxy S8 is the first smartphone to introduce the Iris Scan to unlock the phone while it’s confirmed that Apple is bringing the same feature to iPhone 8 as well. Although it’s a very secure method and almost impossible to replicate. It detects the patterns in the user’s irises that are unique to every person and are virtually impossible to replicate. Seeing all this, it is definitely a better way to secure your phone’s contents as compared to the face recognition method. Of course, it’s a highly secure method and can’t be fooled easily, but it’s still possible. A hack was performed recently at the Chaos Computer Club in Germany where the hackers tried to exploit the Iris lock on a Samsung Galaxy S8 device. The lock was broken with a couple of devices including a laser printer and a digital camera.

First of all, they took the picture of the phone’s owner using the digital camera and had it printed on a paper. The print was taken in such a way that it displayed the actual size of the eyes of that person. Finally, contact lenses were mounted on the eyes of that person’s picture and it was placed in front of the locked Galaxy S8 device. Doing that was enough to unlock the device in the first attempt. So you see, it’s quite difficult to break the Iris locked device but it can be done.

Face Recognition on the other hand is still quite vulnerable and can be fooled just by showing a picture of the subject on a computer or any other device. So it’s definitely a matter of concern and should be taken into consideration.