Guide to choosing the best security lock
Credits: SicuraDomus.com
The locks of our home are an important security element to prevent theft, in one third of theft, in fact, the thieves enter into our house by forcing the lock of the front door.
How can we then choose the best lock to ensure the safety of our home and sleep peacefully away from thieves?
The first thing to do to make your doors safe is to analyze which lock they currently mounts, there are in fact types of locks easy to pick and other types that are much more difficult for thieves to open.
The first step towards a safe house, it can be just to replace all the locks easy to force, with more resistant types.
Let’s summarize in a table the various types of lock to allow you to evaluate the security of your doors’ home:
Unsafe locks
Many of the keys currently present in our homes are not safe: for example, the traditional serrated key, the standard double-key and the key punched (those not security). Below is a brief summary table:
All the locks of this type that are identified in the doors of your home have, more or less, large security problems and it would be better to replace them.
Obviously, not all doors at home need to be theft-proof, but more secure doors there are, more complex you will make life to thieves.
Security Locks
Among the safe locks, the best to choose for having a good home protection, we certainly have the European security cylinder locks, with anti-bumping.
This modern concept lock, available in various brands and models, is technologically advanced because it uses safety keys obtained for millimetric milling, has a mechanical precision much higher than traditional or double-bit keys, but unlike simple punched keys in a European security cylinder we also have another interesting and desirable novelty, the anti-bumping mechanism.
What is bumping?
Key bumping or simply bumping is a method of opening cylinder locks on doors and padlocks with a special impact key.
The method of forcing the bumping consists in inserting in the lock a special key, said impact key, which is previously filed to be used as a tensor; once inserted it into the cylinder, the key is then hit with any rigid object: in this way the impact force goes to raise the upper pistons over the opening line, triggering the lock itself. The real risk represented by this technique is in the comfort of use it(manual dexterity and training of a professional burglar is not necessary) and in the ease of realizing the necessary tools: the necessary impact key, in fact, is simply produced by filing spaces in a number equal to the pistons of the lock. These spaces are much deeper than normal and are used exclusively to bring all the pistons as high as possible.
The risks of key bumping are many, it is a technique easy to learn and use, requires simple preparation and, not least, the major insurance companies recently do not reimburse in case of theft!
We know what you are thinking, to add insult to injury! That’s because the bumping method doesn’t leave traces of breakage so it is relatively easy for the insurance company to deny full repayment of the damage, supporting the argument, obviously unfounded, that the door was not broken open but left open.
Anti-bumping
The modern valid security cylinders are anti-bumping, this means they are equipped with special internal springs and features that guarantee immunity to this type of attack; these cylinders, usually armored, are designed specially to make bumping impossible and are to be considered among the safest cylinders currently on the market.
Even more security: the electronic lock
The new technologies have made in the field of security a lot of progress, and now the results are interesting and affordable for everyone! If you think about it, the ideal lock is the one that can not be broken and that only us, and nobody else, can open!
The electronic digital locks are very close to this ideal, however, it will never be fully achievable. These locks introduce important innovations and absolute safety criteria. The main advantage of this type locks is the total absence of keys!
But if there aren’t keys, how can electronic locks be opened? It’ s very simply: using advanced recognition techniques, with the help of digital technologies.
The beautiful feature of these locks, is that not having physical keys, they make useless the attempts of duplication authorized or not. The locks proposed by Sofia Locks are produced by ISEO Serrature, with the Smart Argo line.
Obviously, great attention must be used to the computer security of such devices. In order to improve security, ISEO has implemented mechanisms such as in-app pairing. As specified in the ISEO official documentation, from a technical point of view, ISEO Argo locks use the following technologies:
- AES Session Keys generated with DHEC (Dif and Hellman Elliptic Curves)
- Random Number generated according to NIST (National Institute of Standard)
- Encrypted and secure communication with AES 128
Among these we can find the Libra electronic cylinder, the Aries handle plate, the Stylos electric actuator and the motorized lock for X1R Smart armored doors.
More information on our smart locks can be found at www.sofialocks.com/smartlocks.
Original article written by the team of SicuraDomus.com — This post revisited an article published on the blog of one of our partners (here the original), Sicura Domus, a milan company specialized in physical security for homes and offices.
