Master keying is a fantastic service that allows for home and business owners to operate with maximum efficiency and convenience. Here’s Golden Locksmith’s guide to the various working aspects of a successful master key system.
Types of Keys
Master Key
This key helps turn a normal lock into a master keyed lock – and is the highest ranking key in a master key system.
Change Key
This key only opens a single lock, or locks that are exactly identical. The lock that this key opens, will also be able to get opened by the master key.
Grand Master Key
This key can operate all locks within multiple master key systems, including all locks operated by change keys.
Great Grand Master Keys
This key will operate all ranges of master key systems classified under it, and all change keys. This preface of ‘great’ before master key systems can be continued indefinitely, with infinite variance for complexity depending on what kind of security infrastructure you need.
Process of Master Keys
The majority of master keys work with pin tumbler locks. They operate by lifting up the driver pin and key pins inside a lock, since it has the exact specification of grooves to lift them to the proper height. A regular pin tumbler can be converted for a master key system by adding an additional wafer pin matched to the master key (which are usually disc shaped.)
Security
Unfortunately, with the convenience of master key systems comes additional security risks. Master key systems can be attacked through decoding and lock picking. Decoding utilizes a collection of exploratory keys that helps narrow down the amount of groove distances between the correct key configuration and the tester key – allowing those skilled at this process to eventually, over time, decode what the structure of the master key system is.
Picking can occur through the additional shear line that the master key wafer creates inside locks – with the additional shear lines (which can be thought of as additional opening combinations) comes additional opportunities for picking. This is a simple matter of ratios. The more keys that are set to open a lock, the more vulnerable the lock is.
These facts should be of importance for all home and business owners concerned with maintaining the security of their property. The security risks associated with a master key system are serious – but aren’t always a reason to ditch the system entirely. The best approach to determining the efficacy and practicality of installing a master key system at your location is by weighting the amount of vulnerability of the locks versus the risk of break ins in general. If the master keyed locks are located inside your location behind deadlocked doors, it makes it much less likely that they can be picked or decoded – but if your front door is set for multiple master keys, it creates a much higher security vulnerability.