Using A Laptop’s Face-Recognition Login? Bad Idea
Written by Evan SchumanNo stunning revelation here, but the facial recognition included with several vendors’ laptops laptop vendors doesn’t work very well. Yes, it can be fooled by a photograph or other digital images. The latest details were revealed at the Black Hat security conference—tagline: Yes, You’re Every Bit As Doomed As You Thought—by a researcher at Bach Khoa Internetwork Security Centre, a Hanoi-based security firm.
To be fair, most vendors have marketed the face-recognition feature as a convenience, and they suggest using more robust security (such as almost anything else) to protect sensitive files. Also, the research said that it sometimes was a bit more complicated than showing an ordinary photo. For example, Toshiba systems forced the researcher “to move the images a bit to fool the technology because it looks for facial movement.” But if any retail IT folk are thinking of using this method as even a first-level security defense, they should probably rethink it.
Leave a Reply
Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
