The PACS Man Comes for Us All: Insecurity in Access Control
Physical security experts expose critical vulnerabilities in modern Physical Access Control Systems (PACS), breaking OSDP readers and smart controllers.
Summary
The False Promise of Modernized Physical Access Control
While facilities have begun replacing legacy unencrypted Wiegand badges with smart card Physical Access Control Systems (PACS), modern software-defined readers introduce new attack vectors.
Auditing the Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP)
Babak Javadi, Nick Draffen, Eric Bettse, and Anze Jensterle analyze the implementation of OSDP and Secure Channel encryption across major commercial access controllers.
Exploiting Installation Shortcuts and Firmware Flaws
The team demonstrates practical bypasses—from sniffing unencrypted master install keys over RS-485 to triggering relay drops via reader tampering.
Hardening Physical Access Control Networks
The speakers provide facilities managers with physical security checklists, including enabling end-to-end OSDP encryption and tamper-proofing controller enclosures.
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