Please explain in great detail about the use of criminals using a cellular signal jammer.
I have heard about these and i wonder if my iQ panel 4 / cellular only sec system can be hacked ? I mainly use the 319 door window and motion sensors with my system.
Would i be notified by ADC if my system was jammed / with these products.
Just how secure is my sys with a iQ 4 and 319 products ?
I only have just one of the newer freq products at this point.
Hi. For jamming, it would appear to be a cellular connection loss. Jamming is fairly easy to do with the right equipment and is also a felony with a capital F in the USA. HAM radio operators love to try to find people doing this as a hobby so people operating jammers tend to get caught pretty often.
Hacking is a totally different thing. That would involve breaking the encryption which is very unlikely. Encryption schemes are updated fairly regularly so unless you’re running an extremely old system, you should be fine. Its usually not worth it to throw a supercomputer at someone’s home security system since the machine time would probably cost more than the house.
At this time, the use of RF/cellular jammers by criminals to commit residential burglaries or similar crimes is not that common, but the use of these devices has increased. RF jammers are primary (but not exclusively) used by a group known as the “South American Theft Group” or SATG. This group generally targets higher-end homes in affluent neighborhoods. They’re also known to setup counter surveillance by hiding camouflaged trail cameras or cellular cameras in bushes to watch their targeted house. (This information is widely available on the internet via various news articles and reports)
Usually, they’re use jammers that target multiple frequencies at the same time which could prevent the alarm system from communicating via wifi/cell and/or with the wireless sensors.
If you’re using the 319 encrypted sensors, that’ll prevent someone from being able to see the data the sensor is transmitting, but that won’t stop them from being jammed.
The best way to prevent this is to have hardwired IP surveillance cameras with AI capability so you get notified as soon as someone enters your property. It’s also recommended to use hardwired door/window sensors, GB’s, sirens and motions if possible as those can’t be jammed. The alarm panel’s primary communication should be connected via ethernet cable and the internet should be backed up by a UPS (battery backup). With the residential alarm.com packages you can have as low as a 6 minute supervision window so if the panel’s connection to the ADC servers are lost, at the 6 minute mark, you’ll receive a panel not responding message from ADC and the central station will get notified (they would most likely treat this as a communication failure, not an alarm).
The business packages offered by ADC supports UL-1610 180-second commercial supervision. This supervision is a little more in-depth and is usually used in high security environments.
In addition, you would need to enable RF jamming in the IQ 4’s programming to be notified locally at the panel of a jamming attempt.
Your security should be done in layers, including exterior electronic detection (cameras), perimeter and interior detection (alarm system), strong physical security (dead bolts with reinforced doors, reinforced glass etc.), a high-end safe for valuables and good insurance.
To answer your question, “Just how secure is my sys with a IQ 4 and 319 products?”. if it’s up against an intruder with a legitimate RF jammer, it’s not secure at all. Which is one of the reason why I hate when alarm companies push replacing hardwired alarm systems with wireless AIO units (IQ4) and a hard-wired to wireless converter, especially when systems like the IQ Pro exist. They literally downgrade the customers systems by doing this.
“In addition, you would need to enable RF jamming in the IQ 4’s programming to be notified locally at the panel of a jamming attempt.”
Precisely how do enable this feature on th iQ 4panel. AND if there were NO WIFI connected to this panel
would it do any good ??
My system uses ATT cellular com only. ( No WIFI). If i enabled RF jamming wold it be effective and truly notify me??
You’re misunderstanding what the RF Jam detection feature does on this panel. The RF Jam detection feature will detect jamming attempts for the PowerG sensors or the legacy RF sensors, it does not detect cellular jamming attempts. Jamming the PowerG or legacy RF sensors will prevent them from communicating with the IQ4 which will allow someone to trip the sensor without the panel knowing.
To enable this feature, you need the installer code to enter programming and it should be under “installation”. You need to enable “PowerG RF Jam Detection”, “Jam Detection”, and “Jam Detection Local Alarm”.
To change the peramaters for these two, you can swipe down from the main screen > Settings > Advanced Settings > Installer Code > Installation > Installer Settings and pick UL20/20 or En 30/60. These are referencing US and European standards for Jam detection. UL 20/20 means looking for 20 continuous seconds of jamming. EN 30/60 means looking for 30 aggregate seconds of jamming in 1 minute.
As for cellular, this would depends on your panels supervision period. Below is more information on that.