Despite the outlandish nature of these attacks and the fact that the attacker would need to have physical access to your device, shoulder surfing attacks have become prominent over the past couple of years. The attack, as the name suggests, involves the aggressor peaking over your shoulder to look at the pin code that you are entering to unlock your device.

What happens next depends entirely on whether or not they manage to steal your phone, but if they do happen to be in possession of your device, they can then get access to pretty much all aspects of your device, including sensitive information that you should never let anyone else access. Thankfully, this could change with Android 14, thanks to a new feature spotted in the Android 13 QPR3 Beta 2.

Google wants to ensure that your Android device is protected against shoulder surfing attacks with Android 14

The feature was spotted by folks over at XDA, and what this feature does is hides the animation that plays whenever you enter your PIN on the lock screen to unlock your phone. By simply hiding the animation, it becomes even more difficult for any shoulder surfer to know what your exact PIN is. However, it is not entirely a foolproof solution as they can still make out what numbers your fingers are tapping, but something is better than nothing.

As for the user itself, we already have a pretty good muscle memory when it comes to entering our PIN code, so it will not be an issue. The feature can be found in Settings > Security & privacy > Device lock > Enhanced PIN privacy. The feature is currently available in Android 13 QPR3 Beta 2, but we are sure that this will eventually make its way to Android 14 on launch. However, considering that this is an Android feature, we are not sure if other OEMs will follow suit.

If you are wondering why this feature is such an important update, well, a Wall Street Journal report has talked about how shoulder surfing attackers have become a lot more common in recent times. With Android 14 bringing this feature to the masses, users can actually feel a bit safer than before. However, as mentioned before, this is not rock-solid protection against such attacks, and I would still advise that you have your phone locked with a more protective method, such as a fingerprint scanner or Face ID. That way, at least, the security will be tighter.