Modern smartphones usually offer some kind of security option to let you into the phone. The iPhone has the a four-digit PIN-like passcode, Android phones have a swiping pattern, Windows Phone has a numeric or text-based password. Those work OK, but they're pretty hackable, and could well be improved by new technologies. Insidious and scary technologies. Here's the rundown. The Problem

A large percentage of users select from a few easy-to-remember numbers. A four-digit PIN like the iPhone uses has around 10,000 possibilities, but the four most commonly used PIN numbers are used about 20 percent of the time. If the person trying to hack your phone knows anything about you--your birthday, when you were married, your address--it makes it that much easier to guess your PIN.