You can generate them above if you would like. Since a pad will not be hit if it's already been used this motion is not 'hard-to-enter' if the top center or center center pad has already been used.īy default I do not include these patterns because I like patterns that I can enter. However this is difficult because if your finger slips even slightly you could hit one of the adjacent pads. It's possible, for example, to have a pattern that starts at the top left pad and immediately connects to the middle right pad. Its advantage is that there are far more possibilities than a typical 4-digit pass code. Instead of entering numbers or letters you instead draw a pattern across nine little circles (pads, as I like to call them). It's much like a password that you enter to unlock the phone. On Android phones the user can add an 'unlock pattern' to protect their phone. It's worth noting that none of these password systems are fool proof, and you probably shouldn't be keeping anything confidential on your Android phone in the first place. You might want to give that a shot, but I doubt it's invulnerable to these 'smudge attacks'. In android 2.2 a numerical pin option is available as well. I've noticed that practiced people can crack short gestures quickly but often cannot crack a longer complex one. However, it often takes more than a little guesswork to decode the pattern even if the smudges are present. The paper reveals that this is a serious problem, and that with enough sophistication the 'smudge attack' can usually be done. You can find the original article here or on Adam Aviv's homepage. Apparently a group of researchers have already done a study on this peculiarity. I've found that longer patterns are much less vulnerable to this, and also patterns that 'double-back' on themselves are less susceptible. These could potentially be used by a malicious person to hijack your phone. Many have commented on how after entering the pattern your fingers leave a trail of smudges showing exactly what you just entered.

Crack pattern maker 7