Sam Thom

Sam is a security consultant at Pen Test Partners who focuses on the weird stuff - hardware, IoT and Operational Technology. He's poked and prodded Industrial and embedded systems across various industries like automotive, IoT, IIoT, chemical, water, power, gas, manufacturing and his favourite of all - the alcohol industry. Sam enjoys tearing down operational systems on the bench almost as much as owning them in the field.


Session

04-10
11:25
20min
Do you even bench, bro?
Adam Bromiley, Sam Thom

In a world of AI slop and next-gen nonsense, how do you know the thing you bought is actually secure? How do you firewall the unfirewall-able?

This is a love letter to bench testing and vulnerability research in an industry where transparency never trends. You'll see intended functionality abused for firmware-level backdoors, controller logic swapped with segregation-busting implants, and why "secure" in OT just means "nobody looked too closely (yet)".

In short: 2 basement gremlins, 1 crusty PLC, and unlimited Monster.

Track 1