Samsung Galaxy S8 Easily Hacked

Samsung’s Galaxy S8 has yet to officially hit the shelves in Iran (apart from a couple of stores claiming to have the new phone in stock at 30 million rials), but it has already caused an issue for the beleaguered tech giant with a security scandal.

The new smartphone, which was unveiled earlier this week to great applause, is Samsung’s first major release since the utter failure of the Galaxy Note 7, which combusted in people’s pockets. The issue this time is not the battery luckily but in fact, the S8’s facial recognition software which is easily hacked according to several online sources.

The S8’s ‘killer feature’ is the face recognition software which lets you open the phone with your face, similar to Microsoft’s Lumia 950 smartphone released last year.  

In a new video originally published on YouTube on April 1, a man is seen to open the phone with a picture of himself on another phone, making the new security feature flawed by design and more of a gimmick.

According to an unnamed industry source was speaking to The Korea Herald, the S8’s facial tracking tech is not secure enough to be used to protect your phone.

“For now, the facial recognition technology is only intended for fun. It should not be considered as a foolproof security measure,” the report states.

While the S8’s facial recognition might not be particularly secure, it’s not the phone’s only biometric security measure.