Forget Passwords: Access Your Phone By Identifying Pics of Familiar Faces

With all the hacking attacks we’ve seen in the news, it’s painfully obvious that using passwords just isn't enough to protect our information. We now have more security measures available than ever before. One of the more unique and effective solutions to have surfaced is Facelock, a clever solution that grants access based on how well you can identify images of your friends and family.

What makes Facelock unique is that it taps directly into your personal memories. By displaying a series of images of people that only you know, in a randomly generated order and with faces scattered in different positions, access is not dependent on a code or a string of characters (which hackers have become skilled at bypassing). Instead, for a hacker to be successful, they will have to tap into your memories, a technology that only exists in science fiction.

You might be thinking, “Okay, what if the device is picked up by a close friend who knows all of the same people that I know?” First off, if they truly are a close friend, they wouldn’t be a jerk and hack into your phone. Second, it’s rare for 100 percent of a person’s friends to be the same. After all, even your spouse had a life before they met you, which included many people whom you’ve never been introduced to.

As secure as Facelock is, a hacker who’s familiar with your social circles does have a better chance at accessing your Facelock-enabled device. In a study of Facelock’s effectiveness, 6.6 percent of hackers who knew the victim were able to successfully bypass Faceflock. Hackers who didn’t know their victims had a less than one percent success rate. Overall, when the two groups were combined, the study showed that Facelock had a 97.5 percent success rate. Additionally, the study showed that would-be hackers who didn’t know the people in the images had a difficult time distinguishing multiple pictures of the same person if they didn’t have a prominent facial feature (like a big nose or a large forehead).

The advantage of Facelock is that you never again have to worry about forgetting your password. However, one disadvantage is that it might not work for your business technology because it will require your IT support team to be familiar with the user’s circle of friends. Plus, for someone who knows you very, very well, hacking into your device may be as easy as playing the classic board game “Guess Who,” minus the fun.

Does Facelock seem like the perfect solution to forgetting your password? Would you trust those who are familiar with your circle of family and friends enough to leave them alone with a Facelock-protected smartphone? Let us know in the comments.