To live in a world where hackers already have a million different ways to steal information off my phone is bad enough. (Let’s see, there’s malware, a thief guessing my lame password, or it could even be someone looking over my shoulder.) Now, according to researchers at Syracuse University, using a smartphone in public at all might be a bad idea because of something called spatio-temporal dynamics.

Spatio-temporal dynamics is a type of artificial intelligence that involves calculating the distance and relationship of objects. In an experiment conducted last year, the Syracuse researchers discovered thieves could use spatio-temporal dynamics to figure out smartphone passwords. Here’s how it’s done: the hacker videotapes someone using a phone, even if all he’s able to get is the back of the device and the movements of the user’s hands as they type. The hacker then applies an algorithm to the video footage that maps the position of the user’s hands to the known position of the phone’s keypad. Hello password, bye-bye data.

“It’s like lip reading,” said Vir V. Phoha, a professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at Syracuse and a coauthor of the research paper, Beware, Your Hands Reveal Your Secrets!. “Based on hand movement and the known geometry of the phone, we can see which keys are pressed.”

According to Director of BlackBerry Security Alex Manea, it’s even better than that. “Lip reading is limited because many sounds use the same lip movement and are impossible to tell apart. Every key on a mobile keyboard is in a unique location, so the only real limitations of spatio-temporal analysis are video quality and image processing.”

Spatio-temporal analysis is already alarmingly accurate. The researchers were able to determine the password after just 10 guesses 94% of the time. To me, this meant any stranger could easily use a camcorder, another smartphone, or even a wearable to film me using my phone and it would be like handing over all my information. Great. I’d have to unlock my BlackBerry from inside a trenchcoat for the rest of my life. Then I remembered: I’m safe, even from a new hacking method like spatio-temporal analysis, because I use a Picture Password.

When Picture Password was introduced last year in BlackBerry 10 OS version 10.2.1, I quickly adopted this new method of securing my phone. It brings a whole new level of security without compromising my productivity. If you haven’t started using it yet I strongly suggest you do.

For those new to the concept, it’s easy to grasp. Picture Password lets you use a combination of a number (0 to 9) and picture to unlock your BlackBerry instead of typing a password. This scheme might sound simplistic but it’s beautifully and intelligently secure. Let’s say your Picture Password is the combination of the number 7 and the big blue button in a photo of lots of brightly colored buttons. Each time you want to unlock your phone, Picture Password presents a randomly generated number grid that includes several instances of the number 7. This semi-transparent grid in turn is laid over the button photo. You tap anywhere on the screen and drag the entire grid until one of the 7s is positioned directly over the blue button. Release the drag for a match and that’s all there is to it!

Picture Password helps protect me from: