Lock-bumping, old garage door openers susceptible to invaders
Read more: Local, Community, Lock Bumping, Garage Door, Openers
QUINCY -- You and your family want to feel safe at night after locking your doors. That's why we want you to know about something that criminals already know so you can protect yourself.
It's called lock bumping. If it happens, you may not even know it. But you can prevent it.
How easy is it for a burglar to slip into your home? It may be as easy as a special key and a couple of taps on your door, called lock bumping.
Why is it important for residents to know about this?
"So they can know how it is done and things to do to help their lock from being bumped," said Mike Zanger, Owner of A-1 Security and Lock Service.
Zanger says the bad guys have already learned what to do, so you need to know how to protect your property and your family.
"That is one of the scary things about it," said Zanger. "You can come home and someone could have been in your house and you wouldn't know it."
He says key bumping has been around for almost a year now, finding its way into many locksmith specialty magazines. And the threat to homeowners is growing.
"It got on the internet and spread like wildfire," Zanger said.
Hundreds of underground websites are spreading the word to anyone who logs on, so Zanger says you need to be prepared. Here's what you can do to protect your home. Lock Bumping only works on cheaper types of locks, not high quality security locks. Locks by brands like Medeco and Schlage Primus can't be bumped. They're more expensive at around $100 a lock, but they'll do the trick.
Zanger says if you have regular locks, chances are the locks you have now can be upgraded to keep key bumpers at bay. The process is called re-pinning. It costs less than a new lock and only a professional locksmith can do it.
In our report, we purposely didn't show you how to make a bump key or how to actually bump a lock. But we felt it was important to let you know so you can better protect yourself.
Mike Zanger told us you should consider a couple other ways to secure your home. Adding outdoor lights may deter a passing burglar. Consider trimming back your shrubs, so thieves have no place to hide in your yard. Pets also are good deterrents, especially dogs. And if you can afford them, consider security systems and alarms.
We also did some checking to see how safe your garage doors are from intruders. Some old garage doors could be opened by other remotes if they were programmed with the same code.
We talked with Jennifer Breckenkamp at the Overhead Door Company of Quincy. She said there is no fear of break-ins with garage door openers made in the last 15 years or so. They're programmed with something called a rolling code, which makes doors virtually impossible to open without the owner's opener.
"What this means is every time you push the button on your remote, the brain in your operator finds a new code or new frequency," said Breckenkamp. "This allows only your opener to open your garage door, making it nearly impossible to duplicate frequencies and making it safe for your family."
Breckenkamp says older openers can be upgraded to the rolling code system. All it takes is a few new pieces and it's cheaper than a whole new opener.
