Roller Shutter Garage Doors & Hacking – What To Look Out For & How To Protect Yourself

Buying electrically powered roller shutter garage doors is a great way to secure your home and garage. At Britannia Security Shutters we install hundreds of roller shutter garage doors for homeowners across Portsmouth every year and are take pride in only installing the most secure and reliable door systems on the market. Whilst roller shutter garage doors are impressively resilient against the physical aspect of breaking, intruders have sought to keep one step ahead by using signal hacking to gain entry to garage doors. Luckily, we carefully select the manufacturers we work with in order to guarantee that your roller shutter garage doors are technologically secure. 

So how do automated roller shutter garage doors actually work and how do intruders try to take advantage of them? 

How do automated roller shutter garage doors work?  

The fundamentals behind how a garage door operates come down to the use of signals over a set of frequencies. The motor on a garage door is fitted with a signal receiver and will start operating when the particular signal it has been set to, is received. The hand-held remote control sends this particular frequency signal to the receiver when pushed thus opening the garage door. 

For security purpose, modern-day automation units tend to use what is known as rolling code technology where the receiver and remote handset work together by using a slight variant of a frequency every time. Each time this variant code is used, the transmitter will notify the receiver of a unique signal code that will be used when the handset is next pushed. Rolling code technology is very important, if a garage door system repeatedly used the same frequency, intruders could potentially hide nearby, wait for a homeowner to open the garage door and copy the frequency allowing them access. 

Dipswitch Configuration 

Before rolling code was invented and adopted for use in garage doors, dipswitches were implemented into the circuitry of many automated roller shutter garage door units. Dip switches are a collection of small switches that can create signal sequences by being in different combinations of up and down. This essentially created more frequency combinations to make an access code from and provided a degree of security that was quickly outlived. 

Although dip switches created more combinations (the more switches, the more combinations) this number of combinations was finite and with a 12 switch unit generating a 1 in 4,000 chance of generating the right code, criminals soon found out that modified transmitters could effectively spam multiple code combinations to the garage door receiver at lightning speed until the right combination was reached.  

How To Protect Yourself Against Potential Hacks

Not many people are aware that there are still many dipswitch roller shutter garage door systems still being used across the UK. If you are concerned about your garage door being hacked, then please contact Britannia Security Shutters for a free consultation. You can also implement a number of actionable steps to protect yourself from garage hacking such as:

• Always keep your access remote/transmitter in a safe place and never leave it in your car in full view
• Consider investing in smart camera technology, this is a great way to remotely monitor your garage from mobile or tablet. The visual presence of a smart camera is also very offputting to any would-be thieves
• Unplug the garage door receiver unit on the inside of the garage if you are away for an extended period – intruders can’t electronically hack a device that isn’t plugged in

For more information on secure roller shutter garage door systems call Britannia Security Shutters today. We have 25 years experience and serve Portsmouth and Southern Hampshire.

Steve Main