Scientists point out the possibility of faking the face recognition system by hitting infrared on the face

ByAshish Gupta

Face recognition system is used in all fields such as airport security system and unlock iPhone X. Chinese researchers point out that it is possible to deceive the face recognition system simply by irradiating infrared on the face and impersonate another person if devising the irradiation method.

Invisible Mask: Practical Attacks on Face Recognition with Infrared
(PDF file)https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.04683.pdf

This Hat Can Fool a Face Recognition System Into Thinking You're Moby - Motherboard
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59jm8d/trick-face-scan-hat-infrared

According to the research of the team of Mr. Ju Jou and others, it is possible to deceive the face recognition system by irradiating infrared on the face, and it is possible to make the system perfectly recognize as a different person . A method of using a baseball cap as an actual exploit example is shown.

To the baseball cap created by the research team as a prototype ......


A compact LED that irradiates infrared rays on the back side of the brim is attached. According to Mr. Joo, only by irradiating the face with infrared light from this LED, the face recognition system can not identify the person wearing the hat.


Studies have reported that it was possible to impersonate a specific person by devising the irradiation place of infrared light and let the face recognition system judge as a face of a specific person with a probability of 70% or more.

In other words, if an attacker gets a face picture of a person who can pass through the face recognition system, there is a possibility that another person not registered in the system can be crafted to break through the authentication. And since the LED attached to this baseball cap is small and it can not recognize infrared rays with the naked eye, it is difficult for a person nearby, such as security guards, to notice cheating.

This paper is not peer reviewed at the time of article creation, so the results are not guaranteed. However, with a simple trick of irradiating infrared to the face, there is a possibility of cheating the face recognition system and an example of exploitation, which points out that improvement of the system is necessary.