The Mechanics of Lock Bumping
A tumbler lock made of pins is composed of a series of pin stacks. When the right key is put into the lock, all of the key pins and driver pins align which allows the cylinder to turn. When no key or the wrong key is inserted into the lock, pin misalignment prevents the cylinder from turning. So you figure your lock is pretty safe.
When the lock bumping mechanism is used, a key is inserted in the keyway and bumping this key into the keyway forces the key to be pushed deeper into the keyway.
The key used for key bumping is specially designed with teeth that transmit a force to all of the bottom pins in the lock. If a slight force is constantly applied to the bump key during the impact of bumping, the cylinder will turn and the lock can be opened.
Lock bumping takes seconds to open a lock. The lock is not damages whatsoever, so the owner would never know. When a lock bumping tool is used to break into a home or business there would be no signs of forced entry or damage, which can make home or business insurance difficult to claim. Electronic locks that have backup key insertion are susceptible to lock bumping. There are certain high security locks that cannot be bumped
Countermeasures to Protect Your Home or Business from Lock Bumping?
Standard locks may vulnerable to bumping unless they are made with specific countermeasures. Locks made of hard steel are vulnerable to lock bumping because they are less prone to damage during the bumping process that might cause a cheaper lock to jam.
Locks which are made with security pins even if they are combined with a regular tumbler mechanism make lock bumping more difficult but obviously not impossible. Locks that are made with trap pins that engage when a pin is not supported will jam a lock’s cylinder making lock bumping difficult if not impossible. Shallow drilling where one or more of the pin stacks is drilled shallower than other is another countermeasure for lock bumping. Attempting to bump a lock that has shallow drilled pin stacks will prove to be impractical because the bump key will be unable to bump the shallow drilled pins because they are too high for the bump key to work. There are a number of bump resistant locks available which cannot be easily opened through the lock bumping method.
Locks that are Bump Resistant Key Bumping is a means of entry that requires very little skill. A general rule that should be abided by, the cheaper the lock, the easier it is probably going to be to bump. Customers tend to get what they pay for when searching for a bump resistant lock. Bump resistant locks have an extra set of tumblers or locking equipment so that the key has to do two things at once. Because of their resistance to manipulation, these locks are resistant to key bumping.
One of the most popular picking or bumping resistant locks is the Medeco lock. The pin tumblers in this lock must not only be raised to a certain level, they must be turned right or left or not turned at all in order to allow the key to turn. An effective set of bump keys would need to have several thousand variations of angles in order to turn the pins properly so that they could be bumped.
Another popular pick/bump resistant lock is the Mul-T-Lock. Since they keys are drilled to precisions to operate the pins, bump keys would be very difficult to make to pick/bump this lock. Schlage Primus locks are also a popular pick/bump resistant type of lock. This lock is made in a way that it uses a second set of pins so one key must do the job of two keys. This type of lock is not at secure as the Medeco but is still quite effective.
High Security Locks
Deadbolt Locks
Mortise Cylinders
Lever Locks
Rim Cylinders
Door Knobs
HandleSets
Panic Bars
Door Closers
Electric Strikes
Digital Locks
Magnetic Locks
Lock Bumping
Rekey & Master Key