Red Alert!

A collection of lock bumping news stories from a vendor of bump proof locks.

A bunch of guys at work were passing this around. It scares the living shit out of me. There are SO many locks of this type we all depend on. To suddenly find out that that people can crack them in seconds? It's shocking.

It works by causing the pins to jump up and if you rotate the bump key just right, you'll get an instant skeleton key to 95% of locks out there on the market.

According to one source, lock bumping has been around since at least the 50's. I'm shocked the lock companies haven't done anything about this before now.

I'm really wondering how many of the HUGE number of break ins and home invasions in the Marigny and Quarter might be the result of a single criminal who knows lock bumping.

More info about Bump Keys

One good piece of news is they are a lot harder to manufacture than you think. The bad news is you can buy them online.

Here's what you can do:
* First off, a short-term fix is to inject WD-40 into the keyslot of your lock. That will cause the pins to reset faster and make it harder to bump.
* Cheap locks are actually less likely to be bumped than some of the more expensive locks. Instead of being bumped, they'll just break.
* There are some really elaborate "bump-proof" locks out there, but they're extremely expensive. There are electromagnetic locks, high tech mechanical locks, and others.
* Get a cheap lock to keep locked when you're at home. Something that can only be operated from the inside. Like this one

I plan on changing a bunch of locks soon, and I promise I'll share my solution.