His new condominium building was a frequent target for thieves, and Joseph Rae had no idea how they were getting in.
After watching high-resolution video surveillance, he found thieves were gaining entry to the building with passcodes. Then he was shocked to learn crooks can easily find building passcodes online.
The retired Port Moody firefighter took on security for the strata council when he moved into the tony Reflections on the River building, on River Road near the Port Haney West Coast Express station.
After five break-ins during a 16-month period, he was feeling disheartened.
He has video from April 1 of two men with hoodies pulled up over their faces, punching the entry panel keyboard, and gaining access 90 seconds later. Later, another camera shows him chasing one of the men on an outdoor common area. Rae corners the suspect, who threatens Rae with an object in an upraised hand.
“I didn’t realize he had a weapon,” said Rae, who had confronted the men in a hallway.
“Your adrenaline is rushing.”
A second building resident can be seen coming out of a door and joining Rae, and the suspect climbs a fence, then is seen sprinting across the parking lot of the Billy Miner Pub.
It was a scary moment for Rae – hitting much closer to home than watching other footage of suspects escaping with armloads of mail, or breaking into unlocked cars in the underground parking garage.
Another resident, who chased mail thieves, stopped when they showed him bear spray.
Eventually, someone was going to get hurt, Rae said.
He tried to investigate the log of what the men had punched into the entry panel, but was puzzled when nothing showed up. They clearly had been punching numbers.
He called the manufacturer of the entry panel, and learned about the default codes.
“I punched it in, and sure enough, I could get into the configuration of it [the entry panel].”
He got over-the-phone instructions, changed the code, and the defaults are gone.
“Which is what the installer should have done.”
His situation is by no means a one-off.
John Griffiths of Westridge Security in Maple Ridge called it “a huge issue” and “an industry problem.”
It can allow burglars to defeat alarm systems in residences, and in a similar manner take control of security cameras – reprogramming them so the images are sent to a thief’s own smartphone.
In every case, default codes are supposed to be changed by installers, said Griffiths. However, too often clients are left with the defaults that can be easily found in online manuals.
“Punch in the default codes, and three out of 10 times it will work,” estimated Griffiths.
“When security people go to people’s homes, they don’t educate them enough.”
Rae said he’s telling his friends with security systems to make sure the default codes are gone. Some homes even advertise which security system thieves should be Googling, he noted.
“I’ve got people now checking their home security, because they put their yard sign saying it’s ‘protected by whoever,’ ” said Rae.
He is happy to have repaired this layer of security to his building, and would like to spread the word about this issue, and have people check the codes on their security systems.
“Now, my family, friends and everyone in here are safe – or safer,” he said. “And now I want everyone to be safer.”
