Vietnamese Security Firm Tricked iPhone X's Face ID With a Mask (VIDEO)

Since iPhone X launched earlier this month people have been trying to fool the Face ID features to unlock the phone. So far it has been tricked by twins, children and now a mask which was developed by Vietnamese security experts.

Experts from the Vietnamese company BKAV have found a new way to bypass the Face ID identification system of the iPhone X using a mask. Sputnik interviewed BKAV’s vice president of network security, Ngo Tuan Anh, for more information on this approach.

Ngo said that the iPhone X’s Face ID feature uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to recognize real faces and masks, and the weakness of the face recognition system lies precisely in this technology.

"Based on research and analysis, since the launch of Apple, we had predicted the vulnerability of AI technology in the face recognition system. As soon as the iPhone X entered the market, we immediately conducted experiments to confirm the existence of the predicted shortcomings. Our assumptions were correct: the Face ID system was deceived by a mask, contrary to what Apple announced at the launch of the iPhone X,” Ngo said.

The specialist recalled that on November 15 Apple publicly defended their innovation saying that it takes 9-10 hours to “deceive” the artificial intelligence of the iPhone X. 

Based on those statements, the company created another mask. According to the experiment, the iPhone X was misled immediately after registering the face of the phone’s owner, and it did not take 9 or 10 hours, as in the previous study. 

"When launching the iPhone X, Apple recommended that if the user has a twin brother or sister whom he does not trust, they should protect their confidential data with a password,” Ngo said.

In the specialist’s opinion this is a huge flaw in the security system because anyone can be "cloned" by creating a mask of his artificial twin. Therefore, he advised Apple to extend the “twins” recommendation of using password to all the customers.

“Artificial intelligence is still created by man, it maximally embodies the experience of the one who created and trained it, in this case, Apple. Therefore, one with more experience can surpass it,” Ngo said.

According to the specialist, fingerprint biometric technology is a more effective way to protect personal data on the phone.

"It's much more difficult to take fingerprint samples than to photograph from a distance. Meanwhile, it's enough to just take a photo from afar and build a 3D object, and you can easily bypass both the Face ID system in Apple and the Iris Scanner system in Samsung," Ngo said.