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There's a surprisingly simple way to leave yourself a "backdoor" with almost any these electronically controlled magnetic locks: tape a paperclip to the magnet.
by cellularmitosis 11y ago
There's a surprisingly simple way to leave yourself a "backdoor" with almost any these electronically controlled magnetic locks: tape a paperclip to the magnet.
The paperclip creates enough of a gap to weaken the magnetic hold such that if you put your shoulder into it, you can pop the door open.
This backdoor is virtually undetectable, because the door still operates normally, and no one thinks to look directly at the magnet (except for me, which is how I discovered this trick).
- abraae 11y agoWow, that's a pretty easy attack, and one that a baddy could pull casually while scoping out an office or some other target during business hours.
- plaguuuuuu 11y agoI know a guy who had to break into his own office, he popped a ceiling panel and disconnected the door's power supply, switching off the magnetic lock
- grahamburger 11y agoI've done that before to get in to the server room during an outage in the middle of the night. For some reason my keycard wasn't working. Servers were on battery backup but the door locks weren't. Killed power via the master switch to the building long enough to get in the door, fix the outage and get out.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoThis is getting just like in Star Trek. A door is locked and you really want to get in? Pop in the panel on the wall and use the door override console. No power on the whole deck? The override console has a handy magnetic hook that will let you open the door by brute force.
- pwnna 11y agoThis is a routinely done thing at the university residence when I lived there (each floor has a lock like this at the elevator room and the staircase doors). Other common items are like a small stack of paper in a folder, or whatever. People did this so they don't have to get their friends by going from their room to the elevator or stairs.
- Avernar 11y agoThe maglocks we installed had a field sensor that measured the bond strength. The LED on the maglock would turn red when powered and then turn green when the bond strenght was correct. Even a tiny piece of paper would keep the LED from going green. Same with a slightly misaligned plate on the door. Pain in the ass since our controllers would not show the door secure until it was perfect.