“We are committed to finding a good solution that works for all segments of the market that includes the building owner, the residents and employees, the integrator who has to service the system and the manufacturer and/or lock supplier. I received the following statement from the CEO at Keri: UL 437 cam locks are produced by most major manufacturers. This Underwriters Laboratories Standard is part of the High Security Standard defined for locks by the Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association (BHMA) known as 156.30. I suggested to Keri that they should supply UL 437-rated locks on all of their cabinets going forward and alert their installers and dealers of the vulnerability.
This is a significant problem for the Postal Inspection Service because possession of USPS keys can allow the theft or destruction of mail and unrestricted access to many buildings. The insecurity of the panel also means that the post office lock can be removed, decoded, and a key produced that will open many buildings and post office collection boxes within a city. This signals the front door to open by releasing its electric strike. I wrote about this problem last November during the presidential election because similar locks have been used to protect ballot collection boxes, and were likewise extremely easy to open The internal switch in the Keri cabinet is connected to the post office lock and can be very easily circumvented by electrically shorting two accessible and adjacent contacts. If the keys are available, then it does not matter. A variety of tools from specialty sites like and Amazon are readily available to easily open these locks. While some vendors may utilize what are known as double-bitted locks, they do not offer any more appreciable security because the basic mechanism still relies upon low-tolerance movable wafers rather than sidebar locking systems. 010” thickness, with no evidence of entry. For our system it took me about fifteen seconds to open it, either by picking or with a standard automotive shim of. For many, it is a simple single-bitted wafer lock. The kind of lock that Keri and other manufacturers supply can be easily identified and circumvented.
I searched for the two industry leaders: Door King and Linear and found their keys and documentation are easily accessed. It turns out that not only is Keri using the same key for all of their panels, but a lot of other companies are as well, from office equipment to file cabinets to phone cabinets and HVAC systems. The keys for these and many other panels can be ordered from Amazon, which I did last week for about twenty dollars. The good news for thieves: virtually all of the wiring schematics for these systems can be found on the Internet. Even if a panel does not contain a bypass lock, the internal wiring can easily allow the same result: triggering electric strikes or garage door control. Especially when that insecurity is coupled with the installation of a postal lock, the ability to circumvent all entry security is very simple and can be accomplished in seconds. These intercom systems are typically located at the entrance to a building, or outside where they are readily accessible to the public. Like many manufacturers, the Keri Entraguard-type technology is a critical piece of any security scheme.
The lock on the intercom cabinet is the security problemĪll of the high-security door locks, deadbolts, advanced RFID key fobs, cameras, key control, and sophisticated access control systems for any building are essentially meaningless if any of their critical components are protected by a low security device that will allow access to the control electronics at the heart of the system. They admitted that they, like most other manufacturers, were not lock experts and were not aware of the vulnerability of the hardware they had been supplying to their customers.Įvery facility manager needs to pay attention to this issue because of the prevalence of these and like systems throughout the country and the ability to completely circumvent the apparent security of buildings against unauthorized entry. They recognized the security issues and the ability to compromise a facility. He immediately organized a zoom call with their senior engineers to discuss their choice of locks and the integration of postal service access into their cabinets. I spoke with Ken Geiszler, the CEO of Keri Systems and alerted him to the design issues in their particular enclosure. Major players in the industry include Keri Systems, Linear, Doorking, Mircom, Kantech (Division of Tyco), and Select Engineered Systems.
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