History Main / SwissCheeseSecurity

* In Chapter 482 of ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', somehow seven masked men are able to boldly walk into Captain-Commander Yamamoto's office to deliver their declaration of war against Soul Society. Even getting past the front gate has in the past been shown to be very difficult and doing so unnoticed should be impossible, as seen by the commotion the heroes caused when they broke in an earlier arc. Yet these guys aren't noticed until they walk through Yamamoto's door. In the very next chapter, the intruders even [[LampshadeHanging mention this]]. Yamamoto responds by saying, [[BadassBoast "I am here.]] [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking There is no better security than this."]] This turned out to be justified, as [[spoiler:their base is in the same spot as the Soul Society, but in a different dimension, meaning all they had to do was switch planes to Soul Society and be there, as they're shown doing later]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'' episode "Drones", the military compound's drone control center was left unlocked and unguarded for the duo to access it.

* ''[[Fanfic/TheUltimateEvil The Stronger Evil]]'': In this ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' fanfiction, Valerie mentally laments that Section 13 has this, as it's quite simple for her to sneak past the guards and security cameras when she wants to see Shendu without anyone's knowledge, and even the Vault's password hasn't been changed since the last break-in.

-->'''Lucius''': What is the ''point'' of having all the security of you just ''ignore it?!''

* While his mansion security in ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' is practically non-existent, almost all comic book versions of ComicBook/LexLuthor are at least somewhat competent when it comes to security. Indeed, during the "[=Y2K=]" storyline (where Brainiac 13 seriously upgraded the city of Metropolis' tech level), Luthor's new, truly ridiculous security measures ''kicked Superman's ass''.

* Averted when ComicBook/IronMan tried infiltrating ComicBook/DoctorDoom's castle with an armor that can become invisible. When he tried, Stark forgot the little fact that Doom's had enough run ins with the ComicBook/FantasticFour's ComicBook/InvisibleWoman sneaking around to have numerous sensors everywhere specifically designed to detect invisible intruders.

* One ''ComicBook/BlackCat'' one-shot featured her breaking into a museum... in order to leave a card advertising her new security consulting business to help them avert this trope.
* Marvel has a lot of abandoned assets with all their high-tech equipment inside ready for someone to take over. When ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} and ComicBook/EmmaFrost had their renegade X-Men, they took over the old Weapon X facility which had everything in order. ComicBook/{{Cable}} and other heroes had occupied crashed Helicarriers before and one incarnation of the ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}} even take over a secret U.S military base. Despite being government property, nobody ever reclaims them and occupants have a field day squatting on these bases.

* In ''Film/{{Daredevil}}'', the Kingpin is surprised that Bullseye broke into his corporate office. When Kingpin asked how Bullseye got past his security, Bullseye pointed to a guard he just killed. [[spoiler:Bullseye even admitted that killing the guard wasn't necessary, but funny.]]

* ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'' has an enemy agent walks through the front gate of a MI:6 safe-house by pretending to be a subsitute milkman. The gate guard makes no attempt to verify his story, arrange an escort or investigate the calls of another guard who gets in a fight with said agent. Later he succeeds in kidnapping defected KGB agent Koskov. While Koskov wasn't really defecting it doesn't excuse the lax security. The incident is mentioned to have made MI:6 the laughing stock of the international community.

* In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', Harrison is able to massacre much of the Starfleet High Command simply by flying a ship up to their meeting room and blasting them, totally uncontested. If Kirk hadn't disabled his ship, forcing an alternate escape, he probably could have flown right back out when he was finished. Later on, [[spoiler:Scotty is able to board the super-secret ''Vengeance'' by simply flying his shuttle into its hidden spacedock, which apparently has no sensors to detect incoming ships, or somehow assumed he was one of theirs.]]

* ''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'': Don has a key card that grants him access to all parts of a military base including where a highy-contagious carrier of a horrible virus is kept. He never encounters any guards and when infected and goes insane is able to get out despite encountering soldier with guns.

* ''Literature/{{Deathlands}}''. In the first novel a [[{{mooks}} sec man]] is guarding the BigFancyHouse of the Baron of Mocsin, and is thinking how unnecessary his job is given the spotlights, electric fence, and ring of outlying sentry posts. [[TemptingFate Then Ryan Cawdor cuts his throat]] and we cut to Ryan thinking what a joke the Baron's security is. Trees have been allowed to grow over the electric fence--which along with the lights keeps going on and off because the generators aren't working properly--and the sentries are all doped up on happyweed. When Ryan enters the house for a word with the Baron, he finds the once-feared Baron grossly fat and doped up on happyweed himself, explaining why things have been allowed to slide.

** In "Shades of Grey", Jack O'Neill (who has been forced to resign from the Air Force in order to avoid criminal prosecution) is able to waltz into Stargate Command and straight into General Hammond's office, without security apparently noticing his presence at all. Now, he ''is'' a former Black Ops veteran and ex-second-in-command of the base, but it still stretches the bounds of plausibility quite a bit. In fact, ''all'' secret bases in ''Stargate SG-1'' seem to qualify, from Goa'uld strongholds to the SGC to NID prisons. The incident in "Shades of Grey" is actually more or less justified, as [[spoiler:the entire thing was a GambitRoulette organized by Hammond and O'Neill, and the latter may have been secretly given means to bypass security and slip into Hammond's office undetected. Besides, O'Neill never actually resigned his commission.]]

** ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]]'' {{averted}} it in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E3Brothers Brothers]]", given the extensive effort and skill Data requires to hijack the Enterprise. At the same time, some basic safeguards are overlooked, such as the computer accepting commands from "Picard" on the bridge when it knows for a fact he's in Main Engineering. Pay attention, ''Voyager''...

** And Justified in one case. The Security guy at one base in the third game is so fed up with one man forgetting the code to his bunk that he flat out prints it out and give it to the guy. The rant accompanying the keycode admits it's a security issue but he doesn't care any more.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' episode "Drones", the military compound's drone control center was left unlocked and unguarded for the duo to access it.

* Tombstone, who in ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' fills the DiabolicalMastermind crime lord role of the Kingpin, has a problem with Spider-Man (and later Venom) entering his office through the window. After this happens several times in succession, he [[DeadpanSnarker deadpans]], [[LampshadeHanging "I really should start locking those windows."]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in [[Recap/StevenUniverseS5E2TheTrial "The Trial"]]; Steven's lawyer Zircon points out that it should have been essentially impossible for Rose Quartz to have gotten close enough to Pink Diamond [[spoiler:to shatter her]]. Pink Diamond was surrounded by attendants, including precognitive Sapphires, Agate bodyguards, and her personal Pearl. Moreover, Rose Quartz had been a known public enemy for centuries and all other Rose Quartz gems had been bubbled, so she would have been instantly recognizable. So how could Rose Quartz have possibly gotten close enough to shatter Pink Diamond without ''anyone'' trying to fight her off, or at least sound the alarm? We're given the answer [[Recap/StevenUniverseS5E18ASinglePaleRose later that season]]: [[spoiler: Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond, who collaborated with her Pearl (the 'Rose Quartz' witnesses saw) to [[FakingTheDead fake her death]]. Understandably, the guards didn't see that one coming.]]

* Worst real-life example ever: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fagan_incident Michael Fagan]], who not only sneaked into ''Buckingham Palace'' in 1982 but managed to get all the way to the '''''Queen's bedroom''''' and chat with her for a while while security finally came. Apparently the palace security was so used to the oversensitive alarms going off all the time that they had stopped taking them seriously ...

* Versailles before UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution. It was bad enough that Marie Antoinette had additional bodyguards, and dodged Jeanne Valois's attempt at scamming her because ''she herself knew Jeanne's fame and face'' and instructed her guards to keep her away the moment she spotted her.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'', the password to the [=ISIS=] mainframe is "guest". Anytime this is found out, the character discovering it is usually appalled. ''All'' passwords everywhere [[ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish are always "guest"]].

* An event in which a couple crashed a White House party pointed out this. The White House actually used to be like this ''regularly'', up until after the presidency of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln. [[WhatsUpKingDude It was how the Prez kept in touch with the people.]] It was still pretty easy to get into the White House ''after'' the Lincoln assassination, too. Charles Guiteau, the future assassin of President UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield, was able to get several ''meetings'' with the President to discuss his supposed pending appointing as Ambassador to France, even though Garfield didn't know him from Adam. Garfield's shooting was itself an example, as it happened in public when he'd entered a train station (without guards, to boot). Guiteau (along with everyone else) was able to simply walk right up. This applies to Lincoln (his bodyguard, a chronic alcoholic, left for a nearby bar, with no one stopping Booth from entering his box at the theater, albeit he was an actor who'd performed at it, thus his presence didn't arouse suspicion) and [=McKinley=] (shot while greeting people at the Pan-American Expedition in Buffalo, NY (Leon Czolgosz simply wrapping his hand and pistol in bandages, faking an injury to cover it). Security still wasn't really amplified before JFK was shot in an open-top automobile. In the wake of that, Presidential security is ''very'' tight, and none have been assassinated since.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', the Autobots were able to stow away on the Decepticon spacebridge pretty much at will, since the guards were always graduates of the ImperialStormTrooperMarksmanshipAcademy, especially poor Shockwave. Brilliantly parodied [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ItfWY3xMQ here.]]
** No wonder, poor guy's got no depth perception. And [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 everyone thinks he's just a one-eyed bloody monster...]]
** Mind you, the Autobots were no better. By virtue of being on the small side, many were the times Laserbeak just flew in, and there was the time he ''rode in on an Autobot in tape mode.'' Soundwave managed to get himself carried in just as often.

** The [[EstablishingSeriesMoment first episode]] took this UpToEleven, with Archer detailing how high-tech he ''believes'' the main server room to be... only to discover that, [[MetaphoricallyTrue while technically accurate]], it's abysmal.

* ''Literature/{{Deathlands}}''. In the first novel a [[{{mooks}} sec man]] is guarding the BigFancyHouse of the Baron of Mocsin, and is thinking how unnecessary his job is given the spotlights, electric fence, and ring of outlying sentry posts. [[TemptingFate Then Ryan Cawdor cuts his throat]] and we cut to Ryan thinking what a joke the Baron's security is. Trees have been allowed to grow over the electric fence--which along with the lights keeps going on and off because the generators aren't working properly--and the sentries are all doped up on happyweed. All this is a sign of the Baron having lost his grip.

* ''Literature/{{Deathlands}}''. In the first novel a sec man is guarding the BigFancyHouse of Jordan Teague, Baron of Mocsin, and is thinking how unnecessary his job is given the electric fence, and ring of outlying sentry posts. Then Ryan Cawdor cuts his throat and we cut to Ryan thinking what a joke their security is; trees have been allowed to grow over the electric fence which is on the fritz have the time anyway, and the sentries were all doped up on happyweed. All this is a sign of Jordan Teague having lost his grip.

* ''Literature/CradleSeries'': Eithan walks into the most secure Skysworn cells, including ones intended to contain someone exactly like him, multiple times without trouble. To make it even more annoying for the jailers, he brings along Yerin, Fisher Gesha, and ''a turtle the size of a car''. He doesn't bother breaking out the prisoner, he just wants to make sure he has a chance to train while in prison.

* Android phones have an "unlock pattern" as one of the phone unlocking options, which is very popular amongst users. Rather than tapping numerical keys, you instead trace a pattern on a grid of nine dots. The problem is, many users who use unlock patterns have the ''blatantly visible'' unlock trail enabled (which is the default, and in older versions of Android it was a thick bright green trail), allowing anyone who is next to them (like a family member, a coworker, or an adjacent public transit passenger) to easily see the pattern. Failing that, because users tend to press somewhat firmly to enter the pattern, they may leave a fingerprint trail that makes it still obvious what the pattern is, reducing the maximum number of times one needs to guess to two (one for each directon).

* Android phones have an "unlock pattern" as one of the phone unlocking options, which is very popular amongst users. Rather than tapping numerical keys, you instead trace a pattern on a grid of nine dots. The problem is, many users who use unlock patterns have the ''blatantly visible'' unlock trail enabled (which is the default, and in older versions of Android it was a thick bright green trail), allowing anyone who is next to them to easily see the pattern. Failing that, because users tend to press somewhat firmly to enter the pattern, they may leave a fingerprint trail that makes it still obvious what the pattern is, reducing the maximum number of times one needs to guess to two (one for each directon).

* Android phones have an "unlock pattern" as one of the phone unlocking options, which is very popular amongst users. Rather than tapping numerical keys, you instead trace a pattern on a grid of nine dots. The problem is, many users who use unlock patterns have the ''blatantly visible'' unlock trail enabled (which is the default), allowing anyone who is next to them to easily see the pattern. Failing that, because users tend to press somewhat firmly to enter the pattern, they may leave a fingerprint trail that makes it still obvious what the pattern is, reducing the maximum number of times one needs to guess to two (one for each directon).

* Android phones have an "unlock pattern" as one of the phone unlocking options, which is very popular amongst users. Rather than tapping numerical keys, you instead trace a pattern on a grid of nine dots. The problem is, many users who use unlock patterns have the ''blatantly visible'' unlock trail enabled by default, allowing anyone who is next to them to easily see the pattern. Failing that, because users tend to press somewhat firmly to enter the pattern, they may leave a fingerprint trail that makes it still obvious what the pattern is, reducing the maximum number of times one needs to guess to two (one for each directon).

* ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'': [[NebulousEvilOrganization Apex Cybernetics]] have terrible security, with Team Godzilla having little trouble sneaking through their facilities. Of course, given their supreme hubris, this is completely in character.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The amount of times that the Doctor has managed to wander into some top secret laboratory armed only with a smile and immediately start ordering people around belongs here.
** Lampshaded when the Doctor and Ace [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E3SilverNemesis found themselves]] wandering around Windsor Castle — walking towards ''the Queen'':
--->'''The Doctor:''' [[BavarianFireDrill Act as if you own the place.]]\\
'''Ace:''' What?!\\
'''The Doctor:''' It always works!
** The [[AppliedPhlebotinum psychic paper]] helps too, although not against places that are actually prepared for that.
** It also doesn't hurt that the sonic screwdriver can open any lock (except a deadlock seal), and disable pretty much any other security device, or that the TARDIS isn't exactly inhibited by walls. In fact, the sonic screwdriver was so convenient for getting the Doctor out of danger that the showrunners wrote it out entirely for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors' tenures.
** This comes up in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]], where the TARDIS landed ''in the Oval Office''.
--->'''Canton:''' Mr. President, that man just walked in here with three of his friends and a great big blue box... ''[points at the Secret Service head]'' and that's the man he walked past. ''One'' of them is worth listening to.

* Played with in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''. Gwen Cooper traces the location of Torchwood by talking to a local pizza delivery place and had no problem entering their secret compound. The Torchwood staff finally admit they wanted to talk to her after they nearly bust up laughing at her "covert" entrance. It's later proven to be very difficult to get into (or out of) Torchwood Institute.

* According to [[https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/k28to6/simple_as_that/ this Tumblr user]], his/her boss once used this trope to demonstrate to ''her'' boss how easy it was to steal a set of original Churchill documents, worth millions, in the museum they worked at. The room housing them had no security guards or cameras, and the documents were only protected by a sheet of glass secured by four screws; when she initially pointed out the security concern, she was ignored. So she bought a ticket, pretended to be a guest, wore a clearly visible drill on her belt, used it to unscrew the sheet of glass, brought them to her boss's office, and said, "I just stole these in 15 minutes." Once he was done being mad at her, he increased security for the documents.

See also BavarianFireDrill, ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy, NoOSHACompliance, UnguidedLabTour, and WhatsUpKingDude. Compare UnsafeHaven and CardboardPrison.

* ''Series/YTheLastMan'':

** ''Series/{{Batwoman|2019}}'': In one episode, Mary just waltzes into her stepsister Kate's office unescorted (as opposed to an earlier episode, where she was accompanied by security). When asked how she got in, she heavily implies that she bribed Carl, the guy at the front desk, with a double-whipped frappucino, to which Kate implies that he'll be making them soon. This turns out to be true in a later episode, as an [[AlternateSelf alternate-universe version of Alice]] also appears in Kate's office, asking why Carl is no longer working the front desk. Clearly, Kate had carried out her promise to fire him, but must have either not replaced him yet, or replaced him with an even less competent guard, because Beth got all the way to the office without being stopped despite looking ''exactly'' like Gotham's most wanted criminal (other than the different hair colour).