Matei Josephs

Matei Josephs breaks things for a living - especially if they beep, blink, or pretend to be "smart". Printers, kiosks, routers, and random IoT junk live in fear when he's nearby. He's a Senior Penetration Tester at Happening, he discovered 9 CVEs and loves hacking at scale. In this talk, "Smart Devices, Dumb Resets? Testing Firmware Persistence in Commercial IoT", Matei reveals how threat actors can implant persistent backdoors in smart devices, then return them for resale through legitimate retailers. Because factory reset processes often fail to wipe firmware-level compromises, attackers can exploit the trust users place in brand-name resellers—turning returned devices into credible, persistent attack vectors.