According to a recent security article on The Hill, some research appears to indicate that smears on a touchscreen could give away passwords used on your mobile device.

I’m not making this up.

You can checkout the full article here and it definitely makes for an interesting (albeit short) read. The article mentions that the research was conducted and a couple of Android handsets, that the passwords were able to be determined 90 percent of the time, and that it was possible after repeating the action several times over.

I can buy it given that last part, but how many times is a person going to enter in the same password in a single sitting without, say, placing the phone back in the purse or their pocket? To wipe the smudges?

Be smart about this, I guess. Wouldn’t want any smear hackers gaining access to your stuff, would we?