The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are jammed tight with new hardware software features, one of which Samsung made a big show about: facial recognition. It’s a feature we’ve seen in Android since Ice Cream Sandwich was introduced years ago, and was generally known as not being one of the most secure methods for locking down your Android phone as it could be easily fooled by a simple photo of the owner.
The big question on everyone’s mind was whether or not the Galaxy S8 could be so easily fooled and it turns out… it might be. While conducting a live stream of the Galaxy S8, it seems that someone was able to hold a completely still picture of themselves on another phone and fool the Galaxy S8 to unlocking itself.
Simply put, this shouldn’t be happening. Google faced a similar issue when they first introduced Android’s facial recognition, but fixed it in later versions of the software where it would have to detect some kind of movement or eye blinks before clearing a face for access. It’s worth noting that the Galaxy S8s at Samsung’s event were still running non-final software, so it’s certainly possible that Samsung could also patch this up in time for the device’s release later next month.
In either case, if given the option — and you really want to keep your phone secure — you may want to stick to Samsung’s other biometric security methods like your fingerprint or even your irises.
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