Action News live at 10
if you think your homey safe just
because the door is locked
think again bad guys may be able to slip
into your house with very little effort
by trying something called lock bumping
Action News 5s Darryl phillips uncovers
the threat and shows what to do about it
Memphian Cindy Sinclair has a
one-year-old son - her security is
everything we're certainly important
before but now that we have a baby
that's all I think about I just want to
make sure that he's okay she was stunned
by this story and you will be to
everyone who sees this in action is
stunned I think that's pretty scary that
someone could break into our house it's
called lock bumping and safety experts
say this technique works on more than
90% of homes the good guys need to know
what to watch out for the bad guys are
going to find out what to do so why
should the public not know what's
happening the trick a special series of
cuts on a regular old house key and a
tap or a series of taps will do the
trick this key does not fit this lock
this one doesn't there's no way that I
can make it jiggle it wiglet do anything
to make it too
that's pumping ESPO Memphis locksmith
Glen Piper says you need to worry about
this because it is so easy even a 10
year old can do it we tried to talk with
police from multiple agencies about it
but they wouldn't even do an interview
either because they didn't know about it
or didn't want to take heat for telling
people about it
but with lock bumping how to's buzzing
across the Internet we decided it was
time to find solutions
alarm systems are more expensive than
this lock okay
so if you're going down the road of
expense this is the cheapest solution
this will put a lock on the door that
can be think we're talking about a
hundred fifty bucks there are some
things you can do
Piper says alarms and pets are good
deterrents lighting around your house
helps to but he says the best thing you
can do is spend a little money on better
locks locks by medico and Schlage Primus
can't be bumped they're more expensive
but they'll do the trick when you try to
put value on your property that's easy
enough to do but how do you put the
value on your personal safety you can't
put a price tag on that
how can you afford not to have a lot
that you can't pick this way learn that
you can't use a bump key on the answer
he says is that you can't and with the
digital underworld abuzz about this new
threat safety experts say it's time to
key in Darryl Phillips Action News 5 now
you probably notice that we did not show
you how to make a bump key several
viewers emailed us today concern we
would be telling criminals how to use
this technique our goal was to make you
aware so that you can better protect
yourself we felt it would be
irresponsible not to tell you about it
we've prepared a lot of
solution-oriented information for you at
WMC tv.com just click on the store