This type of authentication is the ideal way of securing devices since it provides a high level of security with the convenience of graphical passwords. Instead, it’s best to switch to a more secure method of unlocking the screen, namely a PIN code, a password or biometric authentication.
#Most common phone unlock pattern how to#
How to Secure Smart Devices the Right WayĪlthough the same study pointed out that turning off the so-called ‘feedback lines’ – those lines that make the pattern visible on the screen – to reduce the chances of having your graphical password cracked, security experts recommend never using this type of authentication no matter how convenient it may seem. They typically go from left to right, and from top to bottom, often formulating letters or simple geometrical shapes. These results can be shocking but they shouldn’t be surprising at all, considering that most patterns are quite predictable. In simpler words, unlock patterns are so ridiculously easy to guess that it would only take one glance for wrongdoers to remember and copy them. The results are even more disturbing if the hacker has the opportunity to shoulder surf multiple times, in which case the success rate of reproducing graphical passwords increases to a whopping 80%.
#Most common phone unlock pattern android#
Why Patterns Are Too Easy to CrackĪfter examining 3,400 Android unlock patterns security experts found out that by doing little more than shoulder surfing – the act of gathering personal information by visual observation – a hacker could have a 64% success rate in guessing the pattern on the first attempt. However, a study conducted by researchers of the US Naval Academy and the University of Maryland Baltimore County shows the polar opposite. This way almost 400,000 different patterns can be created, which doesn’t sound bad at all. The number of available nodes – or dots if you will – is always nine, but the only requirement is that at least four of these nodes are used. If this graphical password is chosen to serve as the guardian of an Android device each time the user wants to access the phone or tablet a pattern that touches specific nodes on a grid has to be drawn.
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