TORONTO – A well-known hacker has discovered a way to crack the combination of any Master Lock padlock in less than two minutes, using fewer than eight combinations.
According to Samy Kamkar – best known for unleashing the so-called “Samy” worm on once-popular social network Myspace back in 2005 – the technique involves fiddling with the padlocks locked shackle to find various “locked positions” that will eventually reveal the combination.
The trick involves lifting up a locked shackle with one hand while turning the combination dial counterclockwise, starting at 0.
“Before the dial reaches 11, there will be three points where the dial will resist being turned anymore. One of them will be ignored as it is exactly between two whole numbers on the dial,” explained technology site Ars Technica.
“The remaining two locations represent locked positions. Next, an attacker again lifts the locked shackle, this time with less force, while turning the dial clockwise. At some point before a full revolution is completed, the dial will resist being turned.”
Both the two “locked” positions and the one “resistant” location can then be entered into a calculator on Kamkar’s website. The algorithm provides a number of possible combinations for the lock that potential “hackers” could use.
Kamkar told Ars Technica, which first reported Kamkar’s discovery, that he discovered the trick after testing a well-known exploit that allows Master Lock combinations to be cracked in 100 or fewer tries.
The hacker has even come up with a robotic device that he claims is able to crack Master Lock combinations in minutes.
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