Duplicating Restricted Mechanical Keys

Secure facilities in North America use lock systems like Medeco, Abloy, Assa and Mul-T-Lock partly to resist lock picking, but also to prevent the duplication and creation of unauthorised keys. Places such as the White House and the Canadian Parliament buildings go so far as to use a key profile exclusive to that facility to ensure that no-one is able to obtain key blanks on which to make a copy. However, there are tens of thousands of unrestricted key blank profiles in existence - many match very closely to these restricted key blanks, and can be used instead of the real blanks to cut keys on. Moreover, keys are just pieces of metal - we will present numerous practical techniques to create restricted keys without authorisation - including new attacks on Medeco, Mul-T-Lock and Abloy key control systems. We will touch on all aspects of key control, including patents and interactive elements, and discuss how to defeat them and how facility managers can fight back against these attacks.

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