Wild West Hackin' Fest
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 9 months, 2018–2021
44:56 · 2.9M views · Dec 12, 2017
Deviant Ollam, head of a physical penetration testing team, presents tactics for getting into buildings, from bypassing door levers with a wire to defeating bank doors. He argues that physical security is often surprisingly weak.
HN recommends it as an entertaining overview of physical pen testing, and cites it when threads discuss how easily doors and locks are bypassed.
9 comments from Hacker News
Deviant Ollam's talks are always first class. I also love this one, about physical pentesting in general: this video
The internet brings a much bigger attack surface than local people who can reach a front door, and home users access the same openssh as companies do, but companies (can) afford stronger doors. "Most people's home doors can't withstand a hit from a sledgehammer" -> "we shouldn't talk about cryptographic weaknesses in case someone abuses them" is a stretch, the comparison does break down. [1] is a fun YouTube video about physical pen testing; one example at 13:45 in the video, the presenter is walking home from a bar, walks up to a locked high street bank, spits a mouthful of beer through the gap in the doors, triggers the presence sensor on the inside which lets people out, and the door opens and lets him in. [1] this video
This is nowhere near being viable for real world use. Far more concerning is how easy it is to bypass most physical security measures. Forgetting about how easy it is to pick open most locks, many doors aren't even installed properly in the first place. Check out this YouTube video [0] to see what I'm talking about. [0] this video
Simple physical penetration testing tactics are easy to learn and apply widely. These skills can be a quick way to have better security awareness, and can be a fun party trick. For example, many of the techniques listed in this (<1hr) video: this video
Reminded me of this talk. So many silly things leading to easy access. "I'll Let Myself In: Tactics of Physical Pen Testers" this video