Reports about how easy the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10+' face unlock feature can be fooled are pouring in, showing just how much work needs to be done for the new flagship to become more secure. Read on for more details.
Various people on the internet have reported that their Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ smartphones are easy to unlock -- so easy that there won't be any need for sophisticated methods. It's as easy as letting a friend or a sister show their face to it.
Samsung, like other smartphone companies, has embedded a face unlock feature in their new flagship phones. This feature uses the front camera to distinguish if the person holding it is the one registered as its owner or someone who shouldn't be authorized to open it.
Tech website The Verge, however, found a flaw in the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus' execution of the security feature. The Verge's Dan Seifert said he was able to unlock the S10 using just a video of his face shown on another device.
Unbox Therapy guy Lewis Hilsenteger found this to be true as well. In a video uploaded to YouTube, he demonstrated how an old video of his face, one that shows him with a longer beard, was able to open a Galaxy S10 smartphone not just once, but several times, with no effort at all.
What's more, Hilsenteger noted how the other phone had fingerprint smudges on the display. This, along with external lighting, should have affected how the S10 would "see" what he showed on the other phone. It didn't. The S10 was still unlocked.
There's also some buzz about the said security flaw over at Twitter. A certain Jane Manchun Wong tweeted about how she was able to unlock her brother's newly-bought Galaxy S10+ smartphone. She said they tried to open it different ways: with his brother's eyes closed, with her face, then with her face with eyes closed.
She posted a photo of them to show that they didn't look the same. They didn't. The Galaxy S10+ unlocked anyway.
I unlocked my brother's Galaxy S10+ with my face — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) March 9, 2019
Lastly, a redditor who goes by the name perr0 posted how his friend, who looks totally different from him, effortlessly unlocked his Galaxy S10+ using his face. They thought that the phone might have seen him prior to handing it over, and so they tried again. The phone unlocked when his friend pointed the camera to himself.
The Verge said the new flagships do not use 3D mapping or any such feature for face unlock. They simply use the camera to look at a user's face, then compare what they "see" to a previously stored image. Obviously, Samsung needs to work on it.
