From the past DEFCON Hacking Conference in Las Vegas:
Your favorite gun lockbox might be preventing your toddler from having an accidental discharge, but it’s probably not at all likely to repel a criminal or even perhaps a curious teenager. Means of both attacking as well as improving upon the lockboxes you already may own are demonstrated, and audience members were invited to participate in all sorts of attacks… live and on stage.
Like they say, locks only keep honest people out. The video is very long (40 minutes), but really worth watching if you want to learn a few things and save yourself some money. The guy is funny too so the time goes by fast. The gist of the video is that many of these lock boxes are more similar to filing cabinets, than they are to safes.
Thoughts?
SATAN REBUKER
RWC
dave w
Jim P.
Church
This video is amazing.
I lock my spare pistols because if someone really wants it, they can work a little harder for it. I do not have massive amounts of money to by a high quality safe. In fact, if I had that kind of money, I would live alone!
Alternatively, I could just remove the slides, however even a simple lock prevents someone from immediate use.
+1 worth watching all the way through.
This video couldn’t have been posted sooner, I had to pick my sentry file safe to get my gun once cus I lost the damn keys
I fabricated my own jiggler pick out of a cheap aluminum ruler using a grinder wheel and a jeweler’s file and the bugger worked! :O Watching this video when he got to the bit about wafer locks and the Sentry safe in general it made me laugh XD
*gist
Oops! Thanks buddy, I made the correction.
Hey, thanks for the cool mention here on the blog!
I’m please that so many folk enjoyed the talk. I had a really great time preparing it and giving it. The GunVault product is a really nice little lockbox, if you replace the tubular lock with something better. And eventhough the one audience member, Joey, got the cross pick to work on the LockSAF box, that attack hasn’t been repeated by anyone else whom i know. So i personally recommend that model to many friends.
Best regards to all, keep your action clean and your family safe.
I assume you sell the products that you were showing in the video? Great video. It was certainly an eye opener.
No, i am an independent security researcher and lockpicker. All of the products seen in that video do happen to be available from a single supplier, however… Center-Of-Mass.com got in touch with me regarding questions of lock security. The owner there, Patrick, was a really cool guy who was interested in knowing how secure the products were that he stocks and sells. Eventhough the manufacturers themselves were very against any independent security testing, he took it upon himself to sell the units to me at cost so that we could better understand them.
So yeah, Center Of Mass is the site that offers these and other similar items.
I would love to take that Black Hat class you mentioned. I did a google search and found (what I assume to be) that website, but it was hard to navigate. Do you have any more details on that.
Wow, that’s quite the endorsement you have made there, and you barely know of my work and such.
Honestly, thank you for the kind words.
The courses that my company, The CORE Group, teaches around the country (and also sometimes internationally, but only to Blue forces) are targeted at the higher-end of the professional security and penetration field. Absolutely anyone can learn and will get a lot out of them, but the costs are sometime harder to justify if you don’t have an employer paying for your registration.
One of the biggest venues every year that our full compliment of classes are offered is at the Black Hat USA Briefings and Trainings, which are held in Las Vegas every summer (almost always around late July or early August)
Their site is blackhat.com but I don’t know if the full 2012 listings are up yet. I do know that all of our three courses from last summer are still listed in the archives…
https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/training/core-pentest-intro.html
https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/training/core-pentest-advanced.html
https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/training/core-tamper.html
And, just for good measure, my own company’s web site… http://enterthecore.net
Again, i’m only posting these details because a few people asked about them specifically. I don’t want to come across as crass or as a shill.
For most folk, it may be a better use of your time to catch me at a public venue like a hacker conference or a Maker Faire when we run hands-on lockpicking workshops with TOOOL, The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers, which is a non-profit dedicated just to teaching folks the fun and challenge of solving locks like puzzles.
If you want something more in-depth than those public sessions, well, maybe we’ll see you at one of our private trainings. All good guys and gals are welcome.
Thank you for the links. I will be sure to sign up. I am not going to toot my own horn (I know I am a rank amateur) but I have a little background in security and forensics engineering. Mostly in nano-printing and other anti-counterfeiting/IP (intellectual property) protection – how to identify your product against a forgery in case of product failure and litigation. For me this would me as much fun as it is a learning experience.
I was a little leary when I read the length of time the video was going to be, but honestly, I’m probably going to watch it again. You put a lot of good information out, very well, very concise, and it made sense. most of us who read or saw this on here have never taken one of your classes or probably had to pick a lock (minus the one story posted right now), but you obeyed the tenant of a presentation/paper. ‘This must be understood by someone with no knowledge of the subject’. Excellent job.
I would be very interested in taking some of your classes.
Nice, man. Thanks so much for the terrific comments.
If you did indeed want to know more about some of the training work that I do (which is a little bit outside the scope of this video and thus I’m not getting into the whole rundown here) you can see the reply i made to The J above. The links and such up there should set you in the right direction.
I’m glad the video and the presentation were accessible to people from all points on the technology spectrum.
You’re welcome, it was a great talk! I watched a couple of your other videos, and they were awesome as well. Keep up the great work.
My problem with the LockSAF box is that, while the LOCK is secure, the BOX is not. The lip on the lid looks VERY susceptible to a baby-crowbar opening it. The lip used for the actual lock also looks VERY weak. This product, in my opinion, would be better used as a layered defense, i.e. in your night-stand at night and your main safe during the times you’re out of your domicile.
I’m not a security researcher (yet), and don’t own the product. I’m going on what the product’s website shows and the fact I’ve been doing a lot of research on safes and their vulnerabilities lately.
Nice wake up call for the safe manufacturers. I wonder if any of them are changing their lock systems
There’s absolutely no point for them to change anything about their systems since 95%+ of their consumer base will likely never see this information and spending the cash for a decent back up lock will only dig into their bottom line. It’s a sad truth but the point of manufacturing and sales is to move products, not to give good service.
In some ways it’s a “sad truth” but in others it could be simply seen as “just the truth”… I suppose it’s never nice when a company markets something as being SUPER secure, when in fact it is not, but as noted in a few of the images (and some photos that I realize were difficult to read at times) one could see that these vendors (for the most part) are at least TRYING to frame their products as “just sort of good enough” and not portraying them as end-all, be-all security.
Would i prefer just a LITTLE bit more care to be taken? Yeah, i would. That’s why i liked the LockSAF model (more robust construction, harder-to-pick lock, etc) and why i felt that a modified GunVault MicroVault (if you change the tubular lock to an Abloy) can be thought of as substantial security. Not impenetrable, of course, but substantial enough that we can use them with limited confidence for specific, minor purposes.
Deviant,
Thanks for this video. I saw your presentation on flying w/guns, which led me here. I hadn’t had much of an interest in locks before, but you’ve inspired me to start learning about the subject.
Which specific Abloy lock did you use in the Gunvault? I want to try my hand at modding one….
Keep up the good work!
I’ve contacted my lock supply guy (Mitch over at SecuritySnobs.com) to ask him specifically which Abloy cam lock he sent to me. When he replies, i’ll post a link right here.
It took a little bit of dremel work to make sure the tail piece from the original tubular lock would fit on the larger, squarer Abloy tail peg… but it wasn’t all that hard overall.
Thanks–appreciate it!
Funny guy. Great video. Watch all off it.
I’m glad someone made a good quality talk about gun safes because I’ve always felt this way about safes.
Well, yeah. A safe is for theft protection. A small gun-vault is just to keep unauthorized fingers off but still have access. It may deter the criminal breaking in the car that just doesn’t have more than a couple of minutes on a hit and grab, but not the determined bad guy. Besides, if they want it, they just take it (cut the cable if it’s locked down) and go work on it at their leisure.
That said, he’s pretty entertaining and he does highlight some great points about locks. He knows his stuff and this would be a good video to watch before you buy.
A very enjoyable and informative video. I think it’s important to remember that there isn’t a safe on the market that can’t be broken into with enough effort. As as been said, these lock boxes are mostly for keeping honest people honest. If this was in your house and someone broke in, they’d probably just snatch the whole box and work it open later.
Know the difference between a gun safe and a gun locker.
While this is some good info and a great video it doesn’t scare me all that much. Most home invasions are going to be smash and grab types, I don’t see too many of them knowing where to stick a shim in a safe to hit the “learn” button or carrying specialized tools with them for picking the circular locks. The only people I’d realistically worry about would be curious teenagers with lots of free time in the house alone but since I don’t have any of those in my house I don’t have much to worry about.
Yes, everything he said was accurate. But… everything has it’s purpose. I often commit the mortal sin of leaving my CCW handgun in my car. In my defense, there are a lot of places (restaurants, post office, bank) that the law keeps me from taking my gun into. In such a case, I have a cable lock that I run through the frame (it’s a revolver) and the frame mount for the front seat. Can it be picked: yes. Can it be cut: absolutely. Will 99.9% of people who want to steal my LCR out of my truck be stopped by a cable lock: yes. Most people are not going to try and pick a Masterlock in a car with the alarm going off in the parking lot of the TGI Fridays. Every security system can be defeated. My $3,000 Cabela’s Gold Medal safe is child’s play to the guy who knows how to crack it. Will it keep the guy who smashes a window and goes after my flat away from my guns: yes. I appreciate what this guy says, and he is right. But 99.99% of the people I intend to protect my guns from are guys looking to steal some stuff to pawn for drugs, not the team from the “Italian Job”.
I wonder what kind of safe cokeman uses and how many times he’s shot it.
Just curious what model Abloy lock you used to replace the tubular lock, and exactly what mods you had to make to get it to work? (I think in the video you talked about a little dremmel work, but didn’t go into specifics.) I’m thinking that this would be a good one for the gunnies in my area to show them.
I’ve contacted my lock supply guy (Mitch over at SecuritySnobs.com) to ask him specifically which Abloy cam lock he sent to me. When he replies, i’ll post a link right here.
It took a little bit of dremel work to make sure the tail piece from the original tubular lock would fit on the larger, squarer Abloy tail peg… but it wasn’t all that hard overall. If you take the original lock out you’ll likely see instantly what is needed. The Abloy comes with a heavy-duty cam on the tail that is designed to prevent prying and such. The “backup opening” lock (the original tubular) has a thinner, lighter tailpiece because it isn’t providing security… it’s just bent in a way that turning the lock depresses a release bar.
So you want to use the tail piece (if you can call it that… it’s just bent sheet metal) from the original tubular lock even after you swap in the Abloy Protec core. Hence, making the hole a little larger and squarer in the original sheet metal tail piece and then using the small locking nut from the Abloy to affix it all to the back.
The rest stays the same. Save for the need of a little bit of spacing (you can see in the video how i used a metal keyring) the Abloy fits perfectly in the original mounting hardware and will settle right into position.