Heat from fingertips can be used to crack passwords, researchers find

No password is safe, it would appear, since anyone with a heat-detecting camera can tell which keys your fingers have touched on your keyboard. — Photo: Oliver Berg/dpa

LONDON: No password is safe, it would appear, since anyone with a heat-detecting camera can tell which keys your fingers have touched on your keyboard.

Heat-detecting cameras can help crack passwords up to a minute after typing them, researchers have found, as they warn similar systems could be developed by criminals to break into computers and smartphones.