What is shoulder surfing?
Shoulder surfing means stealing a credential by watching it being entered over a shoulder, through a security camera, or from across a café. Long passwords take longer to type and expose more of the entry sequence, so physical privacy matters as much as password strength here.
- Topic
- Attacks
- Reading time
- 1 min
- Reviewed
On this page
Where it still happens
Cash machines and payment terminals, phone unlock screens on public transport, and shared or open-plan offices. PIN entry is the most exposed moment in most people's day, which is one reason a PIN's protection depends more on lockouts than on the number itself.
Practical defences
Cover the keypad with your other hand to block both human observers and overhead cameras. Prefer biometric unlock in public, keeping the PIN as the fallback. Never reuse your card PIN as your phone PIN, since the phone one is observed far more often.
Sources
These primary references support the terminology and current security guidance used in this definition.
