A Robot At DEFCON Cracked A Safe Within 30 Minutes (bbc.com)

schwit1 shared an article from the BBC: Using a cheap robot, a team of hackers has cracked open a leading-brand combination safe, live on stage in Las Vegas. The team from SparkFun Electronics was able to open a SentrySafe safe in around 30 minutes... After the robot discovered the combination was 51.36.93, the safe popped open -- to rapturous applause from the audience of several hundred... The robot, which cost around $200 to put together, makes use of 3D-printed parts that can be easily replaced to fit different brands of combination safe. It cannot crack a digital lock -- although vulnerabilities in those systems have been exposed by other hacking teams in the past.
Though the safe had a million possible combinations using three two-digit numbers, the last number had slightly larger indents on the dial -- reducing the possible combinations to just 10,000. And in addition, "the team also discovered that the safe's design allows for a margin of error to compensate for humans getting their combination slightly wrong" -- which meant that the robot only had to check every third number. "Using this method, they could cut down the number of possible combinations to around 1,000."

"Some SentrySafe models come with an additional lock and key, but the team was able to unlock it by using a Bic pen."

Comments

Sounds like they watched a few Richard Feynman

[Tulsa_Time]

You Tube Videos...

Re:So, not surprised they're not all that secure

[starblazer]

1) steal safe
2) stash safe
3) attach robot
4) profit?

Key to this is to make sure its bolted to the floor. Most home safes aren't.

Re:My Sentry safe model 1250..

[Anonymous Coward]

The police have no legal duty to protect citizens not already in custody. Many don't realize that. Burglary is considered little more than a nuance in many locales and treated much like a noise complaint. The police likely won't come, and even if they do, may do little to no investigating.

On a related note, often the places with the tightest gun restrictions have very poor police response. In my view, if the police have no legal obligation to protect the public, then the public should have the right to be armed with few restrictions. Be glad it wasn't an armed robbery. Even that doesn't necessarily guarantee a timely police response either.

As for safes, pretty much of any of them marketed as fire safes aren't intended for high security. From what I've read, figure on spending upwards of $1000 for even a smallish one cubic foot size safe that's relatively secure. Don't expect to find anything even remotely as good at any well known big box store with the possible exception of sporting good stores that also sell gun safes, and by extension, may offer better general purpose safes too.

Finally, regardless of the safe and its weight, it must be bolted down well for good security. Bank safe deposit box is an alternative for some, but comes with numerous hazards, including various legal ones. Banks generally aren't liable for contents and some types of items can't legally be stored in such a box.

Re:Help me understand this

[gl4ss]

it's defcon.

that is, nowadays it seems it's just about a) money b) cheesy pr stunts to get said money.

why do you think it's in vegas and not say in hamburg?

never mind the fact that it was just a brute forcer - ultrasonic detection, xrays, click detection or anything - just brute force an amount a human could brute force!.

like okay, just have it as an exhibit on the show floor.. okay.

but just take a look at the talks. okay there's apple watch jailbreak but thats about it and even that is kind of a who gives a fuck when you can buy open smartwatches for 1/6th of the price

Re: My Sentry safe model 1250..

[dak664]

For immediate response, dial 911, hangup, don't answer the ringback.