![]() *Locksmith Tobias Bluzmanis cuts out a key printed on Shrinky Dinks plastic.*The attack requires brief access to a high-security key long enough to take a picture of it with a camera phone or scan it, so it will likely have to involve an insider or someone else with access to keys - such as a valet parking attendant. Locksmith Tobias Bluzmanis cuts out a key printed on Shrinky Dinks plastic. When Threat Level arrived in Las Vegas with the lock, it took about six seconds to open the lock using a plastic key. After buying the lock, Threat Level scanned the key and e-mailed the image to the researchers, who then created several plastic keys. ![]() The researchers demonstrated the technique using a Medeco mortise cylinder that Threat Level purchased in California before leaving for Las Vegas. "Basically, we've destroyed Medeco's key control, because we can make (plastic keys) for any of their M3 locks and a lot of their Biaxial locks, which is their last generation of locks," says Tobias, who authored the book Open in Thirty Seconds, with Bluzmanis. Keys used in places like the White House would likely use an even higher level of key control, whereby only the manufacturer - Medeco - would be able to make duplicate keys. If a buyer wants additional keys made for the lock later on, he has to return to the same seller to have him make the keys or find another locksmith who is authorized to use that particular key code. The pins are added by the seller after a customer purchases the lock, using proprietary key codes doled out to locksmiths by the lock manufacturer. To ensure that no keys are made before a lock is sold, the locks are also shipped to the locksmith without pins in them - the bars inside a lock cylinder that engage with the grooves on a key to open the lock. What this means is that only specific locksmiths who are authorized by the lock maker are given key blanks, key codes and equipment to make the keys. High-security locks also use patented key-control systems to prevent just anyone from duplicating the keys. High-security locks - which can cost two to four times the price of a common Kwikset lock used in most homes - have millions of possible key combinations, as opposed to just thousands in low-security locks. ![]() "Key control is supposed to make this impossible to happen. "When you have a high-security lock, you don't expect this to be able to happen," says Tobias, an investigative lawyer who will be demonstrating the hack with Matt Fiddler, a computer-security researcher, and Tobias Bluzmanis, a Florida locksmith. ![]()
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