How Secure Are Electronic Safe Locks? [video]
Security is an interesting thing. I always tend to default to the easiest path. In the case of inexpensive consumer safes the easiest path tends to be smacking the safe in the right spot to cause the locking solenoid to bounce or going after the "backup lock" which is used for access in the event of an electronic lock failure. Here's a video I posted several years ago on YouTube on how to open the wall safe in my house. Radial, aka tubular pin locks are pretty much broken by design. I've never met one I couldn't pick with a business-card.
tldr; This was a ~$500 medium-level security safe and he was unable to crack it via the electronics.
One of my favorite EEVBlogs. Thanks for the submission. Bob's yer uncle!
Side note: Dave noted the use of the old school OTP chip to store the executable code, contrasted it with modern flashable chips, and then linked the use to the original design. However I wonder if retaining the OTP chip isn't a specific security measure? It does what is needed with much less attack surface than a reprogrammable chip, doesn't it?
A safe I used at a prior company had a digital lock with one combination. A little searching for similar models revealed that the lock had additional combinations, not documented in the manual for our safe, with factory default combinations. We changed the extra entries quickly.
I wonder how many more there are. It's software, it's practically uninspectable, it sure wouldn't surprise me.
I was wondering if you could also attempt glitching attacks?