- Joined
- Nov 21, 2022
I get asked this question every now and then and would like to contribute to something in this forum as I really don't post here to much. My background is in physical security, I have forcibly opened over 500 safes maybe picked 5,000 locks? Please consider I know what I am talking about. Hopefully this will help anyone who manages to acquire enough wealth to use this guide. This guide is mostly for people who amass enough Fiat to need a secure means to protect it.
"Safe" is a word that gets thrown around for anything that locks and is deigned to protect it's contents. It means many many things to someone in the physical security industry. People often buy a safe because they see one in a big box store and feel they have use of one. IMHO if you are going to spend over $100USD on something it should be the right one for you. What are you trying to protect? Documents? portable data devices? Fiat currency? precious minerals? I would always recommend someone takes the time and considers what they want the safe for and what they will put in it and then add approximately %25-%50 more cubic room as you will soon realize more things need to be protected. A safe is psychologically a double edged sword, it stops people from easy access into your belongings, it also suggests there is something valuable within. I recently had a woman in a very expensive 3-4 million dollar home want me to open a large 400lb gunsafe, the safe was empty and when it came time to discuss repair she was not interested, she only wanted it opened. She didn't care if it even locked properly. She expressed concern if someone was taking the time to break into her home and they saw the safe they would demand it to be opened, possibly harm someone if it wasn't. She wanted to be able to open the empty safe and show she was complying with a would-be home invasion robbery. "I swear to Christ, I do not know the combo" is not what you want to tell an armed home intruder.
Fire protection
If you are protecting valuable minerals like diamonds or gold fire/heat damage is not so much a concern. Everything else and I do mean everything else some level of fire-resistance is highly recommended. Fire rating is based on time, time it takes the safe to heat to approximately Fahrenheit 451, if that sounds familiar it should as it's the combustion temperature of paper. Meaning at 451 paper will catch fire. This measurement is based around the typical temp in a house fire, this does not apply if you have your safe surrounded by highly combustible materials. So what does this mean? Your safe has a fire rating of 1 hour, your house catches fire and burns for 30 mins before the fire department shows up, in theory your paper documents within will not catch fire. This is not an exact science, your paper items within the safe do not catch fire at 59 minutes 59 seconds. Even the crappiest safes tend to start @ 30 mins fire protection I feel 45 mins is a good place to start.
Forcible entry
I can cut a block of steel with a butter knife, as long as I have 10,000 hours and 10,000 butter knives. There is no such security device that is %100 secure, just the same way with fire these are time delay devices. Don't buy your safe at home depot or Walmart, the methods for opening them are out there, now whether they are even accurate or not the idea someone thinks they can open the safe easily is going to cause problems. %95 of attacks I have seen are uneducated forcible attacks, crowbars, angle grinders, sledge hammers. As I said before this will get the thing open eventually. I love the idea someone is making a fuck ton of noise and carrying 50 lbs of tools to attempt to open a safe, not to mention they are probably sweating and maybe even bleeding all over the place in addition to leaving prints everywhere. A good safe is burglary rated, the ratings go from typically C al the way to around TL60x6. C rated is what you would find at home depot, TL60 is what you would find in the back of a jewelry store. A name brand safe is good enough imho. "American security, Guard-all" are common affordable and good enough for most applications. "Rhino" tends to be pretty good "Liberty" was good although they had some recent concern over the FBI being given override codes with NO warrant. Avoid "sentry" brand.
Weight
If I can carry your safe out, wtf good is it anyway? I believe a good safe starts at 200lbs. The idea 2 grown men are needed to carry it and load it in a vehicle is a good start. Obviously a refrigerator dolly and some ramps will do the job solo but, trying using all that in a rush.
Secure it in place
A safe that weighs 200 lbs when properly bolted to a concrete floor becomes 600lbs. Good fucking luck moving that with the door locked. A safe secured in place will also limit the room to access it to attempt to force entry. A safe bolted under a desk, in the back corner of a closet will not allow someone to have easy access to use tools to attempt to open it. Anything under 100lbs is almost a waste of time to even have as a safe unless it is bolted to the wood beams in a wall or the floor. Almost all safes come with one or four holes so you can pass bolts from the inside into the floor.
Misc thoughts
EMP is something people seem to be very paranoid about, I don't consider this something to worry about. Emp will not magically open the electronic lock on your safe and if the nuclear EMP was big enough to hit your safe destroying the electronic lock you are probably already dying of radiation poisoning.
Mechanical vs digital?
I love digital locks, the ease of use in opening and changing the combo outweigh the cons, tape an extra batter to the top of your safe and only use name brand batteries. Mechanical locks are good for some safes, safes that are used rarely. It is possible to brute force an electronic lock and a mechanical lock.
Override codes/override keys
Recently Liberty safe got into a PR disaster when they gave the FBI? ATF? Was it? The factory override code to one of their safes without a proper warrant, during an investigation. Some safes and some locks have a factory override, you can avoid this by destroying the serial number on your safe and on your safe lock. They will have no records of a safe they cannot identify. Avoid safes that have a mechanical overdrive key they are not good quality, a safe that only uses one designated lock is a good safe.
More security?
The first rule of safe club is: do not talk about safe club. Don't tell anyone where it is or even it exists. Take the electronic dial off your safe, they can't even identify what locking mechanism is in the safe at that point. Not to mention even if they have the combo it won't do much good without a keypad. Wiring a sensor to the door will help, if you know what you are doing you can get real fucking clever, rig up some raspberry pi shit, have the safe dial out through your wifi to your phone, set off a loud alarm, release a dozen cats with knives taped to their heads, all kinds of crazy shit. It's rare but every now and then someone will rig a safe with explosives, I heard about this maybe 20 years ago? If you want the story I'll post what I recall. One of the most interesting ideas I've seen was a self destruct reaction. The safe actually destroyed the data within when the door was opened in a certain manner. Lets say the FBI found out you've been selling coke on the darknet, you tried your best but, you are getting raided they bring in a safe tech and he gets the door opened but, Agent Smith hears a faint "pop" as the door swings open, that pop was a capacitor running through the USB drive with your list of co-conspirators, a wire attached to the door closed the circuit. If he knew what you knew he'd have opened the door 1/4 way then reached in an unhooked the wire. This is all theoretical but you get the idea.
In closing
A good safe is made by a name brand safe company, weighs 200+lbs, fire and burglary rated, nobody knows about it, has a name brand name lock, "amsec" S&G" Lagard" etc, it's bolted to the floor or wooden beam in your wall.
"Safe" is a word that gets thrown around for anything that locks and is deigned to protect it's contents. It means many many things to someone in the physical security industry. People often buy a safe because they see one in a big box store and feel they have use of one. IMHO if you are going to spend over $100USD on something it should be the right one for you. What are you trying to protect? Documents? portable data devices? Fiat currency? precious minerals? I would always recommend someone takes the time and considers what they want the safe for and what they will put in it and then add approximately %25-%50 more cubic room as you will soon realize more things need to be protected. A safe is psychologically a double edged sword, it stops people from easy access into your belongings, it also suggests there is something valuable within. I recently had a woman in a very expensive 3-4 million dollar home want me to open a large 400lb gunsafe, the safe was empty and when it came time to discuss repair she was not interested, she only wanted it opened. She didn't care if it even locked properly. She expressed concern if someone was taking the time to break into her home and they saw the safe they would demand it to be opened, possibly harm someone if it wasn't. She wanted to be able to open the empty safe and show she was complying with a would-be home invasion robbery. "I swear to Christ, I do not know the combo" is not what you want to tell an armed home intruder.
Fire protection
If you are protecting valuable minerals like diamonds or gold fire/heat damage is not so much a concern. Everything else and I do mean everything else some level of fire-resistance is highly recommended. Fire rating is based on time, time it takes the safe to heat to approximately Fahrenheit 451, if that sounds familiar it should as it's the combustion temperature of paper. Meaning at 451 paper will catch fire. This measurement is based around the typical temp in a house fire, this does not apply if you have your safe surrounded by highly combustible materials. So what does this mean? Your safe has a fire rating of 1 hour, your house catches fire and burns for 30 mins before the fire department shows up, in theory your paper documents within will not catch fire. This is not an exact science, your paper items within the safe do not catch fire at 59 minutes 59 seconds. Even the crappiest safes tend to start @ 30 mins fire protection I feel 45 mins is a good place to start.
Forcible entry
I can cut a block of steel with a butter knife, as long as I have 10,000 hours and 10,000 butter knives. There is no such security device that is %100 secure, just the same way with fire these are time delay devices. Don't buy your safe at home depot or Walmart, the methods for opening them are out there, now whether they are even accurate or not the idea someone thinks they can open the safe easily is going to cause problems. %95 of attacks I have seen are uneducated forcible attacks, crowbars, angle grinders, sledge hammers. As I said before this will get the thing open eventually. I love the idea someone is making a fuck ton of noise and carrying 50 lbs of tools to attempt to open a safe, not to mention they are probably sweating and maybe even bleeding all over the place in addition to leaving prints everywhere. A good safe is burglary rated, the ratings go from typically C al the way to around TL60x6. C rated is what you would find at home depot, TL60 is what you would find in the back of a jewelry store. A name brand safe is good enough imho. "American security, Guard-all" are common affordable and good enough for most applications. "Rhino" tends to be pretty good "Liberty" was good although they had some recent concern over the FBI being given override codes with NO warrant. Avoid "sentry" brand.
Weight
If I can carry your safe out, wtf good is it anyway? I believe a good safe starts at 200lbs. The idea 2 grown men are needed to carry it and load it in a vehicle is a good start. Obviously a refrigerator dolly and some ramps will do the job solo but, trying using all that in a rush.
Secure it in place
A safe that weighs 200 lbs when properly bolted to a concrete floor becomes 600lbs. Good fucking luck moving that with the door locked. A safe secured in place will also limit the room to access it to attempt to force entry. A safe bolted under a desk, in the back corner of a closet will not allow someone to have easy access to use tools to attempt to open it. Anything under 100lbs is almost a waste of time to even have as a safe unless it is bolted to the wood beams in a wall or the floor. Almost all safes come with one or four holes so you can pass bolts from the inside into the floor.
Misc thoughts
EMP is something people seem to be very paranoid about, I don't consider this something to worry about. Emp will not magically open the electronic lock on your safe and if the nuclear EMP was big enough to hit your safe destroying the electronic lock you are probably already dying of radiation poisoning.
Mechanical vs digital?
I love digital locks, the ease of use in opening and changing the combo outweigh the cons, tape an extra batter to the top of your safe and only use name brand batteries. Mechanical locks are good for some safes, safes that are used rarely. It is possible to brute force an electronic lock and a mechanical lock.
Override codes/override keys
Recently Liberty safe got into a PR disaster when they gave the FBI? ATF? Was it? The factory override code to one of their safes without a proper warrant, during an investigation. Some safes and some locks have a factory override, you can avoid this by destroying the serial number on your safe and on your safe lock. They will have no records of a safe they cannot identify. Avoid safes that have a mechanical overdrive key they are not good quality, a safe that only uses one designated lock is a good safe.
More security?
The first rule of safe club is: do not talk about safe club. Don't tell anyone where it is or even it exists. Take the electronic dial off your safe, they can't even identify what locking mechanism is in the safe at that point. Not to mention even if they have the combo it won't do much good without a keypad. Wiring a sensor to the door will help, if you know what you are doing you can get real fucking clever, rig up some raspberry pi shit, have the safe dial out through your wifi to your phone, set off a loud alarm, release a dozen cats with knives taped to their heads, all kinds of crazy shit. It's rare but every now and then someone will rig a safe with explosives, I heard about this maybe 20 years ago? If you want the story I'll post what I recall. One of the most interesting ideas I've seen was a self destruct reaction. The safe actually destroyed the data within when the door was opened in a certain manner. Lets say the FBI found out you've been selling coke on the darknet, you tried your best but, you are getting raided they bring in a safe tech and he gets the door opened but, Agent Smith hears a faint "pop" as the door swings open, that pop was a capacitor running through the USB drive with your list of co-conspirators, a wire attached to the door closed the circuit. If he knew what you knew he'd have opened the door 1/4 way then reached in an unhooked the wire. This is all theoretical but you get the idea.
In closing
A good safe is made by a name brand safe company, weighs 200+lbs, fire and burglary rated, nobody knows about it, has a name brand name lock, "amsec" S&G" Lagard" etc, it's bolted to the floor or wooden beam in your wall.
