Lenovo's VeriFace biometrics can be fooled by a mobile phone

Posted on 7 Sep 2009 at 18:08

Lenovo's VeriFace application uses your laptop's webcam to automatically unlock your computer when your face is in front of it. Well, that's the theory. When we tested it, we found that a photo of the laptop's owner worked just as well.

Taking a picture on an HTC Hero and waving the phone's screen in front of our G550 laptop's webcam caused the system to unlock. All it required was a judicious bit of phone waving to minimise reflections. There seems to be no built-in mechanism to tell a live face from a photo of one.

The other problem with the system is that while it's running and hunting for a face it's hammering the computer's hard disk, as we could tell from the drive activity light. That's not something we like to see on a laptop, particularly when it's running on battery power.

It's a nice idea in theory, but the poor security it offers means that we'd rather stick with entering a password or using a fingerprint scanner.

Author: David Ludlow

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