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The Study of Physical Hacks at DefCon
eldavojohn writes "DefCon usually focuses on electronic security, but Saturday a talk was held that focused on possibly the oldest form of hacking — lockpicking. As software security becomes better and better, the focus may be shifting towards simple hacking tips like looking over someone's shoulder for their password, faking employment or just picking the locks to gain access to the building where machines are left on overnight. From the article: 'Medeco deadbolt locks relied on worldwide at embassies, banks and other tempting targets for thieves, spies or terrorists can be opened in seconds with a strip of metal and a thin screw driver, Marc Tobias of Security.org demonstrated for AFP ... Tobias says he refuses to publish details of 'defeating' the locks because they are used in places ranging from homes, banks and jewelers to the White House and the Pentagon. He asked AFP not to disclose how it is done.' I'm sure all Slashdot readers are savvy enough to use firewall(s) but do you know and trust what locks 'physically' protect your data from hacks like these?"
...with a Smith & Wesson (or a Glock, or a Bushmaster, or a Remington).
>>do you know and trust what locks 'physically' protect your data from hacks like these?"
I know I weld my doors shut nightly. You should too!
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
"...simple hacking tips like looking over someone's shoulder for their password."
How far the meaning of this word has come from it's original usage.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Because doors are riddled with 0-day exploits in the frames and hinges. With even a small vehicle, you can exploit a stack-overflow in the frame, popping the entire door out. DOS attacks against hinge pins can also be used to completely bypass a lock.
the focus may be shifting towards simple hacking tips like looking over someone's shoulder for their password, faking employment or just picking the locks to gain access to the building where machines are left on overnight.
It's not shifting at all. I've done my share of hacking when I was younger (ahem) and the weakest link was always the human link. It was much easier to con the secretary into giving a password than hacking the secretary's computer, and I suspect it's even more the case now with more solid computer systems. That's called social engineering and it will always work very well indeed, because much to my dismay, computer users get dumber and dumber as computer get more and more powerful.
As for lockpicking, it's not really a secret that no lock is safe. Look up "bump key" in your favorite search engine and you'll see what I mean.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
There's probably a door around back that is standing open.
lol: You see no door there!
The cuts in the key are individually angled so they rotate the tumblers as well as lifting them. Slots in the tumblers are lined up by the rotation to unlock a sidebar that fits into a longitudinal slot in the cylinder.
Bump keys can't even get started opening that.
More burglars have feet than have lockpicking skills. Step one in physical security is to combat kick-in attacks. Replace your strike plate, which I can almost guarantee is inadequate, with a reinforced model like the Mag-3 and most important, install it with #10 wood screws at least 3" long, so it can't tear out of the studs when subjected to a good kick. Predrill the holes and put soap on the threads so you don't break screws as you install it.
A block watch is a great idea too. Neighbors are a security mechanism.
An alarm system also protects you against fire, which depending on where you live can be a bigger threat than burglary.
From what the original poster's article said, this appears to be a valid method against the original Medeco and the Medeco Biaxial line [1], but I don't see how this would have any effect at all versus the latest Medeco3 mechanism (well, latest since 2003), which uses side bitting on the key as well as the usual Medeco rotating pins.
Other than Medeco, there is one type of lock that would be excellent for security, Abloy's Protec line, which from what I read takes 10-12 hours to pick even for the pros at detainer disk type of locks. However, the Protec line isn't sold in the US. Older Abloy lines are decent, but it would take far less time for a pro to pick them open. There are other high security locks out there, and one can read from a lock site what the weaknesses are of each of them.
Nothing is 100% secure. If some thief is determined enough to bypass something, they can.
Lastly, high security locks just one tool, in a toolbox of security options. If its worth locking with a high security cylinder, its worth having a centrally monitored alarm system (with a duress code [2] option.)
[1]: Biaxial isn't that much more secure than the original Medeco, but it allows for (IIRC) 10 times as many key combinations, allowing for more flexible keying options.
[2]: Yes, home invasions are on the rise, so make sure an alarm system has a duress feature (where it disarms, but silently calls the central station)... and USE the alarm. If at home, use the alarm's "at home" feature which monitors the doors and windows, but doesn't arm the IR detectors. A high security lock is no good when it is opened by the owner at gunpoint.
You seem to know a thing or two about Medeco locks (like the fact that there's a diff. between the original and Biaxial). If you know/see something about the article I don't, please let me know. My father worked for Medeco (and I briefly worked in their factory one summer) and I'm sure he'd love to know.
Also, last I heard, there was still a reward offered by Medeco for picking a lock at their headquarters in Salem VA.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
One summer I was forced to park right in the same neighborhood as crack houses, etc, because of where I had to work. As did my co workers. They all locked their doors and trunks, result, all of them got busted glass and popped trunks. I warned them too, I really did, I said "look at reality, these cars are targets now". Nope, none of them listened. I left my doors unlocked and the trunk slightly open, just eased down. The ride was so old and ratty I wasn't afraid of it getting stolen, albeit that was a chance. There was nothing left in the car to steal, a very cheap in dash radio not even worth a dollar at a pawn shop, but I made it easy for the crooks to ascertain that, because I knew they would look.
Ya, it sucked doing that,the principle rankled me, but my practical nature took over, because it was better than having to replace a door window.
Most modern stick frame construction houses are vulnerable to a razor knife. Just pick a section of wall and slice a hole. You got plastic siding, a thin tyvek sheet, some cheap ass pressboard stuff,(glorified cardboard really), some spun fiberglass insulation, then drywall. That's all you need, a couple minutes with a razor knife and any thief can get in easy, let alone if they use something like a cordless sawzall thing.
A big problem with mechanical locks is the form factor. Anything that has to fit in a standard US cylinder lock hole is inherently weak. It's just too small.
There are some good locking systems out of Israel. Mul-T-Lock makes door locks that extend three or four deadbolts through the door and into the frame, like a vault door. These are made to work like ordinary door lever locks.
The best residential doors are found in older HUD-financed housing projects in bad neighborhoods. Apartment doors are steel fire doors mounted in steel frames, and walls are reinforced concrete. Those things will resist a battering ram. The lock mechanisms usually aren't that great, but the threat there is generally brute force, not lockpicking.
It's surprisingly hard to get good doors and locks in the US. There are better locks in parts of the Third World.
The OP's article really didn't have much detail, but there are other sites that one can check out that have more details on attacks on Medeco locks.
The Medeco reward I've heard about in a number of different forms, so I'm not sure the exact details. Last I heard, if someone can pick 3 Medeco cylinders (the six pin type found in deadbolts, not the four or five that are used as replacement for disk tumbler cylinder replacements.), they get a prize. However I have no clue what the real status of that is.
Nothing is unpickable by someone who knows their stuff and has the manual dexterity. Its slowing people down, to where even a skilled lock manipulator will take hours to open the lock, which will most likely mean detection. Its also forcing someone to leave a signature (scratches), so if stuff does get taken, one can prove to an insurance company that a lock was defeated or something was broken.
Mushroom pins help, but are just one security mechanism, forcing locksmiths to jam the pins up, then let them float downward to the shear line, rather than pushing pins up from their resting place. I'm pretty sure the sidebar is pickable by some tool that rotates the pins, as its talked about on various lockpicking sites.
This is one reason I recommend high security locks. If someone kicks down a door or breaks a window, that leaves a noticable signature where a claim with insurance has more ground. If someone's house is robbed by a bumped lock, there is no trace, and it goes to a word against word thing to prove that stuff was there, and is now not.
It may be the security has nothing to do with the tumbler mechanism. In some locks are weaknesses that have nothing to do with the cylinder used. For example, one lock I have has a very pick resistant cylinder, but one can use a shim and the lock pops right open.
Lastly, some people may state security through obscurity, but I'm glad that the methods of opening Medeco deadbolts are not made public. Physical locks can't be updated like most programs can. Every cylinder in a building would need replacing, and that would amount to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, factoring in parts, labor, the time it takes to deploy a new keying system, getting the new keys to all the employees, etc.
That's what encryption is for. Even with physical access, your files are secure as long as the key lives inside your brain.
Of course they can then be deleted, but someone who would have access to my computer could only "damage" my most precious data, not read it. A computer does not work like a safe, it can be much more efficient.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Locks are easy compared to trying to unhook her bra with your left hand in the dark.
The Dell key-logger hoax has probably the best decoy story to move
_ html/jbug-Usenix06.html
professional hackers/security staffers into the wrong direction, as in
May 2006, USENIX published the following research article :
"Keyboards and Covert Channels"
by Gaurav Shah, Andres Molina and Matt Blaze , 2006-05-17
Department of Computer and Information Science
University of Pennsylvania
http://www.usenix.org/events/sec06/tech/shah/shah
In it the authors demonstrate that todays unwarranted wire tapping NSA
activities, normally don't result in much success as serious internet
users routinely apply encryption into their communications, like IPSec
tunneling, ssh, VPN access connections, secure web-traffic https when
i.e. doing Internet banking activities.
However, secret service found a clever approach to all this, by
covertly installing a Keyboard JitterBug into your keyboard. Here's
how to secure your most trusted keyboard :
Keyboard JitterBug eavesdropping
http://crashrecovery.org/internet/#jitter
where i may add, that lock picking _ALSO_ has been the best hoax ever
on public display. Why? How many people today design their _OWN_
locksmith locks? All installed door-locks worldwide are somehow sold in
stores, hence its products and replacement keys are in the archives of
the local secret service.
Robert
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Parent's point I'd guess would be that it's an arms war. If you're saying that the way to stop being knifed is to carry a knife yourself, then the criminals carry guns. And if you match that with a gun, surely the only solution is for everybody to carry fecking ridiculous big guns around? Personally I am happy to be able to walk down to the shops without needing to carry a weapon.
If weapons stop crime, how come the USA, one of the most tooled up countries in the world, has so much crime and so many people die from gun injuries?
I remember buying a Samsonite briefcase with digital lock. Two weeks later I had a bunch of people try to open it over a weekend. Nobody managed to crack the 4 digit lock during the two days despite trying all available combinations and despite me opening it every time when I was handed it.
:-)
Why?
Because they DIDN'T try all available combinations. I discovered that the Samsonite digital lock with 4 positions from 0..9 can have a total of 11110 combinations instead of 10000 because you do not need to use all positions (which is not even in the little manual). In other words, the number of possible combinations is 10000 + 1000 + 100 + 10. The combination in use was "9" with me pretending to press the remaining 3 digits so there was a little bit of misdirection involved
Having said that, that specific lock has a more fundamental flaw that allows it to be easily reset, and this type of briefcase is not popular with airport security so I eventually stopped using it.
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