The technological advancement of surveillance systems and the knowledge of thieves to deactivate them go hand in hand. Now thieves have even become electronics experts. But they don’t necessarily know all the safety systems catalogs. We recommend a list of which surveillance systems are most difficult for thieves and have peaceful dreams.
Electronic alarm systems have made great strides in recent years. We can find in the catalogs of anti-tampering and anti-sabotage systems, the sensors have protections against tearing. Even in the event of a blackout, they continue to work thanks to a self-powered battery system. In short, they are not easy to deactivate.
Thieves need to be electronics experts in order to disable today’s security systems. But it is not difficult for these experts to put such systems on the table. Surely for a few hundred euro anti-theft kit.
First we will go to find out together what are those tricks that thieves use to deactivate an alarm. Remember, they could save your homes from theft.
Shoot continuously
Think of yours alarm that goes off continuously. Every 5 minutes the siren starts, a deafening sound that scares the neighbors and alarms you too, who receive the notification via smartphone or through the telephone call of the GSM dialer.
What do you think immediately? At a malfunction, the alarm went into TILT. We certainly disturb the neighbors, especially in an apartment building, and then we turn it off.
This is a huge mistake. It would be nothing more than an invitation to the house for thieves, in fact they are the ones to make it snap on purpose.
How will they do it? You wonder. If there are external sensors just stand in front of them to trigger them. Or if they are far away they can use powerful flashlights to send a direct light on the sensor.
During the day they can use mirrors to direct the beam of sunlight. If you have door sensors, percussion type or magnetic contacts they can give strong jolts to start the siren.
There aren’t many options in these cases. You go home and stand guard or you equipped with video surveillance cameras positioned in strategic points, preferably not visible. In that case you can detect the presence of a thief understanding that he is doing it on purpose.
Recommended anti-theft devices
We have selected one list of anti-theft kits which are quite reliable. They range from the more expensive one of the SOMFY with double siren (internal and external) and a motion detector to the cheaper one of the BENTEL, still considered an excellent brand.
- SOMFY HOME ALARM KIT.
- YALE BURGLAR ALARM in dual frequency.
- D-LINK kit with alarm cameras.
- BENTEL kit with classic control keyboard.
Remote controls and codes
It will be trivial, but never disclose your outlet code of the alarm control unit and do not leave the codes in plain sight, perhaps right next to the control unit itself.
Also pay attention to the remote controls for activation and deactivation. IR transmission frequencies can be intercepted and decoded.
For the alarms that are controlled by the internetknow that you lend your side to any intrusions. An open “backdoor” in the network is always a danger. If you want to control the home alarm from the internet, do it with video surveillance cameras and not via the control unit, or with remote control cameras that connect to the internet through the home wifi.
On the internet you can buy receivers with a few tens of euros. They are dongles that attach to the PC with the Usb socket and antenna that intercept signals even at distances of 30 meters. Because the broadcasts contain a unique identifier for each monitored device and event, an attacker could identify when a window or door in a house has been opened by an occupant and possibly use it to identify where the occupants of the house are.
Jammer attack
the jammer is a small device with antennas that bombs the area creating a magnetic field that disturbs radio transmissions.
It is used to deactivate the GPS of a satellite car alarm or make the GSM communications of a home alarm difficult for example.
In Italy, the use of such devices is prohibited and punished by article 617 bis of the penal code, but it is not difficult to construct it. Many components use anti-jammering systems (for example they use 2 or 4 redundant data transmission frequencies) but they are not always effective, especially if the attack is massive.
Better with wires than without
All wireless alarm systems use radio frequency signals sent between the sensors and the control unit.
The alarm signals are distributed every time a window is opened, or a person passes by regardless of whether the alarm is enabled or not. However, when it is active the system will trigger the alarm.
Systems are known to fail to encrypt or authenticate signals sent from sensors to control panels, making it easy for someone to intercept data, decrypt commands and reproduce them.
It is clear that it is not so simple, it takes expert thieves, but we do not exclude that it can happen even if double frequency or quad frequency systems are used (433 and 868 Mhz).
Bad weather
Bad weather can be a disturbing factor for volumetric sensors. We mean heavy rain, hail, snow but also fog. In these cases the sensors do not do their job well. While they have been designed to work even in these conditions, they can still have problems.
Thieves can take advantage of it precisely because they know that in these cases they generate false alarms, so the owners have deactivated them, or they don’t work at all.
Darkening
Blackouts shouldn’t worry you as the alarm systems have a system with a buffer battery that can ensure their operation. Yes but for how long? You may not have checked the battery for years, they are flat, do not last long and have run out of autonomy after an hour.
It is true that the advanced control units also provide this mode by sending an alarm signal precisely in moments of blackout, but also in this case thieves could exploit the weakness by constantly turning off the power.
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