In recent days, some bloggers have been shocked to find an interesting security flaw within the Samsung Galaxy S8’s facial recognition technology. If you tried unlocking the S8 using a selfie, the device would not be able to recognize the user’s face and open it, would it? we contacted Samsung with this same question, and here’s what they’d to say regarding it.
Reviewing the official launch video of the new Galaxy, at precisely 25 minutes in, the Senior vice president of Product Strategy for Samsung Justin Denison conferred the new security options on their devices. 3 features were highlighted as biometric authentication methods: an iris scanner, a fingerprint reader and face recognition. during this part, he produced one of the most effective quotes of the whole presentation: “It’s not simply entering a password, you’re the password!”.
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And it’s error-free, in theory. facial recognition is a fast and simple way of protection and unlocking your smartphone, therefore Denison considered this to be a convenient feature. In fact, as he was talking, the words “Instant Access” popped up on the screen within the background. At that moment in time, you might have thought automatic face recognition was the most effective feature you’ll have to protect your smartphone: simple, quick and safe. After all, “you’re the password.”
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The reality is somewhat totally different. Anyone using a picture of the device’s registered user’s face could unlock the phone in a few seconds, and without any failures. within the video below you’ll be able to see simply how simple it’s to unlock a Galaxy S8 in 20 seconds using a static image:
Official Statement from Samsung Europe
After looking this video several times over the weekend, i decided to induce in contact with Samsung to find out how it could it’s potential to unlock a device using simply the mobile owner’s picture. Here is their official statement:
As you can clearly see, at no time does the manufacturer recognize that the matter is being caused by the use of a demo or beta version of the software system. However, it does makes it very clear that because it’s not secure enough to do therefore, “facial recognition can only be accustomed unlock the Samsung Galaxy S8 and it can not be used to access Samsung Pay or Secure Folder.”
Just like at the Unpacked event, i was informed that facial recognition software system is aimed at convenience and speed over security. This info is just shown to users when they 1st try to configure facial recognition as an unlocking feature on their device.
How reliable is the facial recognition on the Samsung Galaxy S8?
Let’s face it if an easy picture is enough to unlock the device, then facial recognition is not reliable at all.
On a system level, the device scans the user and takes a photograph of the user’s face using the front camera. Here the camera will compare the particular details of this image with the image of the person facing the camera, and then unlocks the phone. This works much faster than the other unlocking technique as the image process is finished by the Galaxy S8’s powerful cpu coupled with the 8 Mega-Pixel camera’s quick auto-focus.
Facial recognition is not a new feature for smartphones. it was 1st introduced in 2011 with the release of the Google Nexus five and android 4.0. due to the protection issues which were associated with this feature, it was eventually removed as an option. At the time, the developers at Google were still working to optimize the feature, therefore users would need to blink to prove to the phone that they were physically there. In the end, they had to abandon the thought.
In all honesty, after everything that happened with the Galaxy Note 7 and Samsung’s pledge to invest in higher security, the decision to include this as a security option to unlock the phone, which can be cracked relatively simply, shows the manufacturer isn’t taking the market situation very seriously.
To me, Samsung’s facial recognition simply looks like a tactic therefore it can avoid talking regarding why it decided to move the fingerprint reader to the rear of the device – a move which has been attracting a lot of criticism.
Realistically, if you are really looking for a convenient security feature, set up the sensible Lock instead. For the most effective security, use features like the fingerprint reader, iris scanner, a PIN or a password.
At Last, I hope this selection isn’t available on this device when it reaches the market on April, 21.
