Vulnerability Allows Hackers to Unlock Smart Home Door Locks A smart home is a vulnerable home. It is replete with interconnected IoT devices, many with their own known or unknown vulnerabilities and connected to the internet by a router that probably has the original, unchanged default password. Sometimes the connection is via a mobile phone app, often introducing a further weakness.To get more news about secure locks, you can visit securamsys.com official website. At this stage in the evolution of smart homes, they have another characteristic: they are almost by definition the abode of wealthy or significant people. This makes the smart home a target for cybercriminals, and — potentially — a target for cyber-savvy physical burglars. The latter is not yet a major crime vector; but it is likely to grow. F-Secure’s latest discovery of a design flaw in a smart lock illustrates the dangers. The product is the KeyWe Smart Lock, a remote-controlled entry device primarily used in private dwellings. Users can open and close doors via an app on their mobile phones. The flaw is not in the lock, but in the communication between the app and the lock. The lock itself is quite strong, including data encryption to prevent unauthorized parties from accessing system-critical information, such as the secret passphrase. Communication between the lock and the controlling app is not so secure. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy over WiFi, and although ostensibly encrypted, there is a flaw in its design: the common key does not change between executions, but it does change with the device address. “This is a grave mistake!” writes F-Secure Consulting’s Krzysztof Marciniak in an associated blog. “As an in-house key exchange is used – with just two values involved – to decrypt all of the communication, one simply needs to intercept the transmission. The common key can then be easily calculated based on the device address.” He says, “Unfortunately, “the lock’s design makes bypassing these mechanisms to eavesdrop on messages exchanged by the lock and app fairly easy for attackers — leaving it open to a relatively simple attack. There’s no way to mitigate this, so accessing homes protected by the lock is a safe bet for burglars able to replicate the hack. All attackers need is a little know-how, a device to help them capture traffic — which can be purchased from many consumer electronic stores for as little as $10 — and a bit of time to find the lock owners.” A sniffing device could be hidden close to the door awaiting the return of the homeowner. The command communicated by the app to the lock could be captured and decrypted, and the attacker could enter the building next time it is vacant — or potentially worse, at night when the occupants are asleep. At the personal level, the smart home would likely include an actual or metaphorical jewel box of valuables. At the corporate level, the smart homeowner is likely to be a senior executive accustomed to working from home on a computer with some form of connection to at least part of the enterprise network. The attacker now has physical access to this device. “Security isn’t one size fits all,” explains Marciniak. “It needs to be tailored to account for the user, environment, threat model, and more. Doing this isn’t easy, but if IoT device vendors are going to ship products that can’t receive updates, it’s important to build these devices to be secure from the ground up.” F-Secure reported the issue to the vendor, who has been responsive in communication with the researchers. “Unfortunately,” writes Marciniak, “no firmware upgrade functionality has been included and thus the issue will persist until the device is replaced. According to the vendor, new devices will contain a security fix. Moreover, the next version of the lock will have the firmware upgrade functionality — although no information is available regarding the release date.”

the complete guide to commercial door locks and access control

Genea have put together a comprehensive and complete guide to help users determine whether commercial door locks or access control solutions are a better fit for them.To get more news about security lock systems, you can visit securamsys.com official website.

Traditional locks and keys have been used for centuries. But today, this technology is unable to meet the evolving security needs of businesses. Due to this challenge, commercial real estate owners and managers are implementing reliable access control solutions and commercial door locks.

Commercial door locks are standalone security devices installed on doors to restrict people from entering a room. Only a person with a physical key can open this lock. Though modern commercial door lock systems come with advanced functionalities such as key less entry and remote lock/unlock, you should carefully consider if they meet your security requirements.

In this article, we’ll explore commercial access control solutions and commercial door locks so that you’ll understand how these two technologies differ in terms of features and working mechanisms.
What is a Commercial Door Lock?
Though commercial grade door locks look similar to traditional locksets that are used in homes, they differ in terms of strength, functionality and endurance. Not all commercial locks are suitable for all kinds of doors. Unless you understand the grades of commercial locks available in the market, you may not know what type of lock you should choose for a particular door.
The grade of commercial door hardware is determined by looking at the type of material used for components such as strike plates, door hinges, door levers, deadbolts, door closers, lock cylinders, exit devices, door handles and doorknobs.

Security professionals should first assess their security requirements and then decide on the grade of the commercial lock they want to purchase.
In addition to grades, you should also get familiar with the types of commercial door locks while choosing a suitable door lock system for your enterprise. The most popular types of commercial door locks are wireless locks, mortise locks, cylindrical locks, deadbolt locks, electric strikes, padlocks, lever locksets and electronic locks.

Wireless Locks
Wireless door locks are locking devices that operate (lock and unlock the door) without the need for electrical wiring. These locks are powered by an internal battery. You can connect wireless locks to the Wi-Fi and operate them from a smartphone application. Businesses can easily integrate wireless locks into existing access control systems and facilitate keyless entry for users.

Mortise Locks
Mortise locksets are widely used in commercial buildings because they are highly durable and resistant to forced entry. Since mortise lock systems come with a strike plate along with a deadbolt located inside the body, they are difficult to breach without a key.

Deadbolt Locks
A deadbolt lock is a lock system in which the bolt is moved by rotating the key without the spring. These single cylinder deadbolts are easy to install on doors and provide better security for your building. They can be installed on external doors in conjunction with other commercial door lock systems to provide an extra layer of protection. Today, many types of commercial magnetic door lock systems come with keyless deadbolt options that make them compatible with modern-day access control systems.

Electronic Locks and Smart Locks
Commercial electronic locks are advanced locking systems that eliminate the need for physical keys. Since WIFi or Bluetooth-enabled smart locks are compatible with access control systems, enterprises can choose to use PINs, swipecards, mobile keys, RFID cards and other credentials to unlock the door. It means these locks work in conjunction with electronic keypads, proximity card readers or RFID card readers.

The Security System of the Future – Electronic Devices Could Use “Logic Locks”

Electronic devices of the future may have improved security measures integrated into their circuitry to help defend against malicious attacks. Researchers from King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) have shown how protective “logic locks” based on the cutting-edge field of spintronics could be inserted into the integrated circuits of electronic chips to protect chip security.To get more news about secure locks, you can visit securamsys.com official website.

“The need for hardware-based security features reflects the globalized nature of modern electronics manufacture,” explains Yehia Massoud from KAUST. Electronics companies usually employ large specialized, external foundries to produce their chips, which minimizes costs but introduces potential vulnerabilities to the supply chain. The circuit design could simply be illegally copied by an untrusted foundry for counterfeit chip production or could be maliciously modified by the incorporation of “hardware Trojans” into the circuitry that detrimentally affects its behavior in some way.
To increase confidence in the globalized integrated circuit manufacturing chain, security approaches such as logic locking are now widely used,” says Divyanshu Divyanshu, a Ph.D. student in Massoud’s labs. To defend chip security, the ITL team designed an integrated circuit logic lock based on a component called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ).

Logic locking works like a combination lock, Divyanshu explains. Unless the correct “key” combination signal is supplied to the lock, the circuit’s operation is scrambled. “The keys to the lock are stored in tamper-proof memory, ensuring hardware security against several threat models,” Divyanshu says.

The logic-locking behavior of the MTJ is based on spintronics, an emerging form of advanced electronics. “Spintronics is a field of study in which a physical property of electrons called spin is exploited, in addition to their charge,” Massoud explains. The MTJ’s electronic output depends on the spin alignment of the electrons within it. Only when the MTJ receives the correct key signal input, however, does it produce the correct output for the protected circuit to function.
Spin-based devices have several advantages compared to conventional silicon components, Massoud notes, including low operational voltage and no power consumption during standby. “With the advancement in fabrication methods, the possibility of using emerging spintronic device structures in the chip design has increased,” he adds. “These properties make spintronic devices a potential choice for exploring hardware security.”

Spintronics could be ideal for the logic-locking task, the team’s work has shown. “Our next steps include the investigation of other spin-based devices to develop logic-locking blocks, with the help of state-of-the-art fabrication facilities available at KAUST,” Massoud says.

Smart locks: Keep your door guarded with these 3 fresh fasteners

Smart locks might not have made any substantial advancements to the actual mechanics of a deadbolt, but they've certainly changed the way we interact with them. With motorized deadbolts and built-in connectivity with your home network or phone, smart locks allow you to lock and unlock your door remotely using an app, and a lot of them can sync with voice assistants, home automation platforms and home security systems, too. They can be a big help if someone needs to drop something off while you're out of the house, if you have houseguests or renters who need access to your home or if you can't seem to remember whether you locked the door on your way to work in the morning.To get more news about secure locks, you can visit securamsys.com official website.

The features that define the best smart lock for your home will differ depending on the door in question and the people who walk through it. Smart locks that can be retrofitted to the traditional lock instead of replacing the existing deadbolt are a must-have for some people, especially apartment-dwellers. Others will care more about user codes that they can share with houseguests or extra features like fingerprint scanners, auto-locking and unlocking or compatibility with Apple HomeKit.

Our long-running smart lock champ, the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock includes a retrofit August lock and a DoorSense open-close sensor to upgrade your existing deadbolt or other lock. Wi-Fi comes built in with this version of the lock, so you won't need to pay extra for August's plug-in Wi-Fi Connect bridge to enable remote access with a smartphone app or to sync up with Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri (August supports all three, which is terrific).

On top of that, the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is 45% smaller than previous August models, and it offers a good mix of features in the well-designed August app. That includes unlimited user access, auto-locking and unlocking, and a log of every action that happens at your front door. If you purchase August's wireless keypad accessory for $60, you can add coded entry into the mix, too. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is a capable, easy-to-install smart lock and a reliable performer in our tests, all of which earned it an Editors' Choice award from CNET.
If you're renting out your place using a service like AirBNB, then a smart lock makes a ton of sense to make it easy for guests to get in. Our recommendation would be to get a smart lock that supports coded entry — just give your guests a code that only works for the duration of their stay, and they'll be able to get in and out without needing to use a key or download an app.

The coded smart lock we like the best is the Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro. With physical buttons that work regardless of the weather (or whether or not the user is wearing gloves), it's about as foolproof as coded locks get. It features one of our favorite smart lock designs, with a built-in fingerprint sensor and a sneaky front face that flips down to reveal the keyhole. Plus, the lock's built-in Wi-Fi radio was a top performer in our range tests, which might make it an especially good pick for a door that's a couple of rooms away from your router. You can sync it with Alexa or Google Assistant for voice controls, too, though Apple HomeKit isn't supported.
If you're ready to upgrade to a smart lock, but you aren't crazy about the idea of spending $200 or more, then the Wyze Lock might be just what you're looking for. Available for just $130, you'll get built-in Bluetooth for pairing with your phone at close range plus a plug-in Wi-Fi hub for connecting from afar or connecting via Alexa or Google Assistant. If you're interested in coded entry, you can add a wireless keypad accessory into the mix for an extra $30.

With a retrofit design, the Wyze Lock works with your existing deadbolt and key. It's admittedly plain-looking on the inside of your door, but it's easy to install, and it worked well in our tests, making it a great budget pick.