Yahoo Autos Car Thieves Apparently Hacked Garage Door Opener
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It’s amazing to us how many people believe their garage door opener is some sort of security device. The reality is they’re tools of convenience, both for your and for potential thieves. A family in Herriman, Utah found this out the hard way after some thieves “hacked” into their opener and stole a Hyundai Santa Fe right out of their garage.
Man breaks into family’s garage and drinks gasoline.
Activating a garage door opener without authorization was a thing way back in the 1980s but people think somehow modern units are impervious to that type of attack. Nothing could be further from the truth. Plus, there are ways to physically open a garage door, defeating the opener and gaining quick access.
These victims were smart enough to install a security camera in the garage, which captured the face of the one thief quite clearly. It all went down at around 3 am on February 2. After gaining access to the garage, the couple tried opening one car but it was locked. That’s why they stole the Hyundai, although the report from KMYU doesn’t say how.
The victims saw from their outside surveillance camera footage the thieves had been casing out the neighborhood for about an hour before they struck. We’re guessing they were seeing whatever device they had would work for activating garage door openers in the area. When they got a positive hit they struck quickly.
The best way to guard against this sort of thing is to lock the track on your garage door. Most come with a physical slide lock people usually don’t use. Yes, it’s an inconvenience since you can’t just hit the opener in the morning and be on your way. But this guards against all the most common attacks on door openers, not all of which are electronic.
Also, locking your car doors even when you’re parked in the garage is wise. We can’t believe people don’t do that, but again it’s probably for convenience. Finally, keep the door from the garage into your house locked at night or when you’re gone. Not doing that is almost asking for people to just waltz in and take whatever they like.
Image via KMYU
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