How To Stop Your Garage From Being Hacked
Unfortunately, your garage door is one of the most commonly-targeted weak points when it comes to burglary. Not only are garage doors susceptible to break-ins, they also provide criminals shelter once inside, giving them free reign to take what’s inside.
While everyone knows that personal electronics like laptops and mobile phones require protection from hackers and digital thieves who are looking to mine sensitive data and information, less know about those thieves who want to hack your garage door. Well, it’s not actually your garage door that’s being hacked, it’s your garage door opener, and it’s a common target for more tech-savvy burglars.
In this article, the team at Dimension Garage Doors are going to cover garage door hacking.
Generation 1 Garage Door Openers
In the early days of electric garage door openers, hacking was a huge problem, given that they lacked many of the sophisticated security features which we have on offer today.
Back then, all garage door openers shared a common electric code which was extremely easy to hack. Thieves could simply buy a transmitter, making burglary a walk in the park.
Generation 2 Garage Door Openers
When the first problem of garage door openers became more widespread, a new system was introduced. Second generation garage door openers allowed owners to set a unique code, which meant that the simpler hacking methods of generation 1 didn’t apply.
The problem here, however, is that many people who used these devices didn’t take advantage of their unique code, meaning that thieves were still relatively unimpeded.
What’s more, for those that did enter a unique code, the door was still vulnerable to hackers.
Rolling-Code Technology
These days, the best garage doors have rolling-code technology, which sends out a new code with each use. This has made it extremely difficult for hackers, and the chances have reduced drastically. However, it’s not impossible.
Tips to ensure your garage door doesn’t get hacked:
- Never leave your remote in your car, it’s an invitation for a thief to break in and steal it.
- Have a deadlock installed on your garage door, and use it when away for extended periods of time.
- Always keep your garage door closed when you’re not using it. While this is simple advice, you would be surprised how many people forget to do this.
- When you go on holiday, place a padlock on your garage door lock. More than anything, this demonstrates to thieves that hacking this door would be pointless.
Dimension Garage Doors have specialised in providing high quality, ultra-secure automated and manual garage doors that are reliable and affordable throughout the North West of England for over 20 years. For more information on services including supplying, installing, maintenance and repairs of garage doors, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. Our professional team would be more than happy to discuss the security benefits of each garage door with you personally.