11-22, 09:35–10:35 (Europe/Vienna), Main Room
In his book “The Great Train Robbery” Michael Crichton details the events of a Victorian era train robbery involving an underage prostitute and a child scaling buildings. Although these methods are unlikely to be included in a modern letter of engagement, the case of the most famous train robbery of its time has some interesting parallels to modern day physical security. It will remind us that core principals rarely change, humans always play a key role in security systems, and will hopefully rekindle your joy for heist stories.
As a result, this talk shares the story of The Great Train Robbery, enriched by my adventures and research into replicating multiple hacks. We will explore duplicating keys, cracking safes, physical recon and many more fun hacks that still today have a surprising resemblance to their Victorian era counterparts.
This talk is first and foremost an excuse for me to retell the story of The Great Train Robbery and to share my love for Michael Crichton’s book. But because I work in security, I could not stop myself from reading this book and asking myself: “How would this work?”, “Does this apply to today’s environments?” and most importantly, “I want to try this myself!”.
As a result, this talk shares the story of The Great Train Robbery, enriched by my adventures and research into replicating multiple hacks. We will explore duplicating keys, cracking safes, physical recon and many more fun hacks that still today have a surprising resemblance to their Victorian era counterparts.
Paul is a security consultant for KPMG. His training is largely in pentesting, Red Teaming and threat intelligence, but physical security has always been near and dear to his heart. He consults customers in the areas of cybersecurity, physical security and AI security.