Android Phone's Pattern Lock - Easy to Guess

Android's pattern lock, which lets you unlock your phone by swiping a specific pattern across the screen, may seem more secure than a password, but that's not always the case...

A study in 2015 suggested that 44 percent of lock patterns start in the upper left (and 77 percent start in one of the corners), and most moved left to right and up to down, just like we'd read a book. The end result? Our pattern lock patterns are pretty predictable.

A new attack makes use of that predictability: there's now an algorithm that can guess 95% of pattern locks within five attempts. This bit of code analyzes video of people using pattern lock to unlock their phones, taken from about 8 feet away with a smartphone camera (or over 29 feet away using a high-quality SLR or DSLR camera). Even without being able to see the screen, the algorithm can watch your hand movements and predict your pattern. more