Well unfortunately the burglars are now using signal jammers in our area to disable systems and WiFi cameras. My question is do power g or encrypted sensors prevent the signal jamming ? Or since they are now disabling WiFi and cell signals now it makes having encrypted sensors obsolete no system can prevent jamming I assume , it’s better to be hardwired? u think that will make a comeback with more companies going hardwired just curious
Thank you
Encryption does not prevent signal jamming. It prevents signal spoofing or replay attacks (sending false alarm signals to your panel). This would be done to make you think your sensor is faulty and annoy you to the point that you disable it. It’s really more about the sensor signals being digitally signed than encrypted. I think encryption is a bad name for it but that’s what the industry uses. I suppose one benefit of actual encryption is it would prevent someone from sniffing your sensor signals and learning about system usage pattens but digital signing is the bigger benefit.
PowerG uses many frequencies spread over a wider band of RF than traditional wireless sensor signals, which only use one narrow frequency. This reduces jamming risk because they would have to jam all the frequencies to block communication.
I’m not aware of any reports of intruders jamming PowerG but it’s not impossible. It would take more sophisticated jamming tools. They usually jam Wi-Fi which is more prevalent and easier to jam.
The IQ Panel has a jam detection feature that is disabled by default. You can enable it to get an alarm when sensor jamming is detected. The only down side there is a possibility of false jam detection from noise. If you’re concerned about it, you might consider enabling that.
Wired sensors are generally considered to be more secure than wireless but there are potential attacks for wired sensors as well, particularly of they aren’t properly “supervised”. But unless you have wires run during a build or renovation, it’s very expensive to run wires in a finished home. Some people do a compromise where they install wireless sensors at the perimeter (doors & windows) and wired motion detectors inside in locations they can more easily run wires.
Also keep in mind that wired internet or phone lines can be cut from the outside. The best approach is Alarm.com dual-path for redundancy. Even when your sensors detect an intrusion, if they can’t get the signal to the monitoring center (via broadband or cellular) then it’s still a problem.