Exciting technology like facial recognition is making our smartphones more functional than ever, but at what cost? We’re learning that there are several ways to game the software, which leaves your data and information vulnerable to attack. So, how can you protect yourself?
Thankfully, there are some steps you can take to make face unlock on your Galaxy S10 more secure. We’ll fill you in on everything you need to know in this article.
Setting up face recognition
If you want a secondary way of unlocking your phone, you can enable face recognition by heading to Settings > Biometrics and security > Face recognition. Now when the screen on any of the S10 phones turns on, you’ll notice a light circling the hole-punch camera (the selfie camera floating on the screen at the top right). This means the camera is looking for your face, and once it finds it, the phone will unlock. You can set it to jump straight to the home screen by toggling off Stay on Lock screen.
The problem is the technology is very basic, and that means it’s not very secure. A simple trick of showing the camera a photo of your face — printed out or on another phone — will fool it to unlock the phone. Just take a look at our test in the tweet below:
So yeah, the #GalaxyS10 can be unlocked with an image of your face. BUT go into Settings > Biometrics and Security > Face recognition and toggle off "Faster recognition." Haven't been able to fool it with an image since, and the speed difference doesn't feel that much slower. pic.twitter.com/n13sEmn8mt
— Julian Chokkattu (@JulianChokkattu) March 7, 2019
We’ve pointed images of our face toward the Galaxy S10’s selfie camera, and it never fails to unlock. That’s a little alarming, even if Samsung does state clearly that facial recognition isn’t secure. Face recognition on the S10 series will still never be secure enough to use as an authentication method for sensitive apps, but there is a way to make it less easy to spoof.
Slightly more secure
In Settings > Biometrics and security > Face recognition, toggle off Faster recognition. What this does is make face recognition a little slower but a little more secure, so it won’t be fooled with just a photo of your face. Next to the Faster recognition option, it does warn, “Faster recognition improves speed but reduces security, increasing the possibility of a video or image being incorrectly recognized as your face.”
We’ve turned it off and then tried to spoof it with the same test as before, but the phone wouldn’t unlock whatsoever. The difference in speed is also negligible. Now, we’re not saying it won’t be susceptible to any kind of spoofing, but it should offer just a little bit more peace of mind if you still want to use face unlock.
Ultimately, if the security of Samsung’s face recognition worries you one bit, it’s likely a better idea to not use it at all, and just stick to the fingerprint sensor.
