Security BSides Las Vegas 2025

Taking down the power grid!
2025-08-05 , Tuscany

The talk is a step by step warstory on how we as a Red Team was able to go from nothing to physical access to the EMP secure server room with the servers that control the power grid for a large part of the country.


The talk is a step by step warstory on how we as a Red Team was able to go from nothing to physical access to the EMP secure server room with the servers that control the power grid for a large part of the country. It contains topics such as infrastructure hacking, default passwords, PIN code "eavsdropping", access card encryption key revelation, access card cloning, social engineering, etc. It is a scary story on how it was possible to get access to the EMP secure server room for a power company, and place a dummy bomb bomb.

John-André Bjørkhaug has worked as a penetration tester for over 16 years. He has a degree in electrical engineering but prefer to break things instead of building things. This led him to become a hacker/penetration tester. John's main focus is penetration testing of internal infrastructure and physical security system together with social engineering and full scale Red Team tests. John picked his first lock when he was 10, and still loving it!