Hackers could be controlling your garage doors

'Garage doors aren't designed to be as specific as other systems'

ADVICE: Rory Birch at his hobby shop on Park Avenue's Main St. Picture: Jann Houley

ROCKHAMPTON residents are increasingly concerned about the security of their home and possessions as they question whether garage doors are being "hacked".

A Frenchville resident began a thread on Facebook questioning whether "someone might have a scanner that can detect roller door remote signals" after her garage door started opening and closing without her using the remote.

Certainly the internet is flooded with as many ads for inexpensive scanners as there are for companies that offer increased security "rolling code" doors. The Morning Bulletin has asked former electrician turned hobby shop owner, Rory Birch, to weigh in on the debate.

"The current remotes work on 2.4GHz, which is encoded so the signal is dedicated to its receiver," he said.

"But garage doors aren't designed to be as specific and smart as other systems such as cars."

Mr Birch explains there are now millions of different signals available

"You don't face as many problems these days picking up random signals from other people's devices," he said. "It is less likely to be a random event than someone in fact mucking about with a scanner."

Mr Birch says that devices can "crack" and store a cordless phone or a remote door signal about as easily as burning a disc.

"People out there can pick up on my signal, listen in on my conversations, no problem.

"Your garage door remote may only work over 50 or 60 metres but, if there's someone another 50 or 60 metres up the road, they can copy the signal and use it when they want."

Whether or not that person intends to break in, however, Mr Birch is hesitant to conjecture.

"A garage door's quick, big, you can get in relatively quickly; I don't know why anybody would be drawing attention to themselves with a 'dry run'."

He has heard of a more insidious trend concerning the security of remote homesteads with people using drones to "case" what they can steal.

"People are flying drones out of sight, illegally, and at night to see what people own in terms of equipment and even livestock," he said.

"A bloke in Gladstone really opened my eyes to what's going on, it's pretty scary."

Mr Birch's hobby shop on Park Avenue's Main St caters to a lot of hobbyists who use wireless or radio gear to fly model aircraft and race model cars.

"The car's remotes only work up to about 100 metres but the model aircraft you can control way beyond where you can see them, up to 2km," he said.

But he says there are unexplained instances of "interference" for which the cause is not yet determined.

"We know when the military's operating around Shoalwater Bay we get a lot more interference, things slow down," he said.

"There are 'hot spots' around the region which are prone to interference...but they're not always active."

Mr Birch says hobbyists have been warned, if they fly their models too high, the military will jam their signals and cause them to take a dive.

So when it comes to garage remotes, he says it's statistically more likely a scanner than a random code glitch, but the technology is growing faster than our means to understand it.

"The manufacturers tell us 'you can use 50 radios at a time' but when you have 51 or 52, what happens?" he said.

"They can't tell us."

Originally published as Hackers could be controlling your garage doors