GPN24 talk: Tamper-Sensing Meshes In The Wild

2026-06-11

Tamper-sensing meshes are circuit structures that are used to detect attempts to drill or cut into a device like a HSM or a payment terminal. They are widely used in the industry, but little is documented about their construction. As part of my PhD, I did a large study of how these tamper-sensing meshes are built in practice. I collected a large number of devices, mostly payment terminals, and dissected them to analyze their tamper-sensing mesh construction.

At this years Gulaschprogrammiernacht (GPN24), a hacker event in the German city of Karlsruhe, I gave a talk outlining my research. In the talk, I go through the basics of the technology, as well as the core findings from my survey. A recording of the talk is live on media.ccc.de. The slides can be downloaded here.