DEF CON 22 - Deviant Ollam & Howard Payne - Elevator Hacking - From the Pit to the Penthouse

What people said

cruffle_duffle · 2026-07 · Strong recommendation

If you like elevator hacking don’t forget the seminal DEF CON talk by Deviant Ollam and Howard Payne: [VIDEO] I watch it like once a year because it always tickles some part of me. Like all the different modes you can get an elevator into. The most fancy one people might encounter is when moving into or out of a building. The front office can give you a key to give exclusive control over an elevator so your movers aren’t waiting around on elevators. Put it in that mode and it will stop responding to calls from other floors. Only the person with the key can control the elevator. You get on, select the floor, door closes elevator goes, and then just chills there with the door open waiting for you. Annoying for the rest if the building (the building is down an elevator when in that mode) but is amazing for the person using it! But there are way, way more depending on the installation and function. Fun fact: most elevator shafts are sealed at the top as tight as possible to prevent them from becoming a giant chimney in a fire. It never even occurred to me until I was in a mechanical room wondering “where is the hatch to look down the shaft?” The answer is “there is none, and it’s a feature not a bug.” You want to block all airflow so fire doesn’t chase up the shaft into neighboring floors. Who knew!

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alexpotato · 2023-03 · Strong recommendation

If you liked the original post, you will probably LOVE this DEFCON talk about elevator hacking: [VIDEO] It also gives a lot of fascinating information about elevators in general and specific operation modes. e.g. there is a "riot mode" where the elevator goes to every floor except the first (or ground in EU) floor aka to the lobby. The idea was that, during a riot, a luxury building in NYC would lock the stairwell access from the lobby but people could still take the elevator to the other floors to visit their neighbors etc

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simlevesque · 2026-03 · Recommendation

I love pentesting stories. Great blog post, I was smiling while reading most of it. It reminded me of Deviant Ollam's stories such has his elevator security talk w/ Howard Payne: [VIDEO]

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