Scientists from Florida International University and Bloomberg have created a custom two-factor authentication (2FA) system that relies on users taking a photo of a personal object.

The act of taking the photo comes to replace the cumbersome process of using crypto-based hardware security keys (e.g., YubiKey devices) or entering verification codes received via SMS or voice call.

The new system is named Pixie, and researchers argue it is more secure than the aforementioned solutions.

Pixie lets users authenticate with a photo of a favorite object

Pixie works by requiring users to choose an object as their 2FA key. When they set up the Pixie 2FA protection, they take an initial photo of the object that will be used for reference. Every time users try to log into their account again, they re-take a photo of the same object, and an app installed on their phone compares the two photos.

Because only the user knows what that object is, an attacker cannot intercept SMS communications or exploit flaws in the SS7 protocol to hijack the 2FA process, like it's happening today with verification codes sent via SMS.

Even if the attacker knows the user's object, users can further improve their Pixie authentication by taking the photo only at certain angles or only of a small section of the object.

Pixie has a false accept rate of only 0.09%

In automated tests, Pixie achieved a false accept rate below 0.09% in a brute force attack with 14.3 million authentication attempts — nine wrong identifications every 10,000 login attempts.

Furthermore, in a test with 42 participants that took place over eight days in three different sessions, researchers say that "Pixie outperforms text-based passwords on memorability, speed, and user preference."

Researchers also say that new users had no need for complicated instructions and were able to get started with Pixie right away, some of them remembering their Pixie 2FA login trinket even after long periods of time.

This is because the system doesn't restrict users and they can choose anything they want as their login trinket, from their watch to parts of their body, and from clothing objects to furniture. Users should be careful not to choose perishable objects like food, because once it's gone, users will most likely get locked out of their account.

The Pixie system also has another advantage, which is that it does not use remote servers for the authentication process. All the image recognition operations are handled locally via the Pixie app.

Pixie app available

Researchers are still working on the Pixie system, but you can get the app from this GitHub repository and test it out.

The research team presented the Pixie 2FA system at this month's Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.

A scientific paper describing their system is available here, and is entitled "Camera Based Two Factor Authentication Through Mobile and Wearable Devices."