Stay calm, but hacker-scientists in the UK have a 100 percent success rate at cracking your smartphone’s 4-digit PIN using motion sensors.
A new study from Newcastle University showed that cyber researchers, acting as hackers, could use motion sensors to steal four-digit smartphone PINs with astounding accuracy. Just how accurate? The researchers determined the correct PINs with 70 percent accuracy on the first guess and 100 percent by the fifth guess. Apple gives you 10 tries before locking you out completely.
The method itself is just as amazing. Apparently, the way your phone physically moves and tilts as you enter your information creates distinct patterns that hackers can track and then recreate. The Newcastle team identified 25 different sensors that are standard on most smartphones, most of which do not require permission to gather information. Hacking these sensors, the team could determine what the user was clicking and what they were typing. Siamak Shahandashti, one of the authors of the study, compared it to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.
Motion sensors, the parts of the phone that record these pieces, are very easily hacked with a malware link. Apple and Firefox released patches last year to bolster sensor security, and Google is still looking into a fix.
In a press release from the UK university, lead author Maryam Mehrnezhad explained the situation like this:
Most smart phones, tablets, and other wearables are now equipped with a multitude of sensors, from the well-known GPS, camera and microphone to instruments such as the gyroscope, proximity, NFC, and rotation sensors and accelerometer.
But because mobile apps and websites don’t need to ask permission to access most of them, malicious programs can covertly ‘listen in’ on your sensor data and use it to discover a wide range of sensitive information about you such as phone call timing, physical activities and even your touch actions, PINs and passwords.
Mehrnezhad went on to explain that if you open a page with a malicious program and do not close that page before moving on to enter sensitive information into a new page, they can track whatever you enter on that new page. They can even do this if your phone is locked. So, you have more to worry about than just your GPS and camera.
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And, of course, it doesn’t end there. Any number of modern technological staples have motion sensors. The Newcastle researchers – and, potentially, real life hackers – are turning to your Fitbit next.
