physical pen testers

I was listening to an episode of darknet diaries and learnt that there is this profession called a “physical penetration tester” where basically a person works for a institution who wants to test the security of their physical infrastructure (buildings). A client could be a bank or some other financial firm.

The episode interviews two such people that worked for the security firm coalfire. They tell a story of when they were hired by the Iowa state to pen test their courthouses. And then later while they were on their job doing the pen testing on the building they get arrested and are prosecuted with felony charges. This gets out of hand as there is a lot of misunderstanding between officials, the judges, the sheriff who arrested them during the night. This goes to show that you are just not safe no matter what you are doing. Although they were bailed out by their company, coalfire, they will have to live the lasting consequences of the whole ordeal. Every time they get background checked, or every time an officer pulls them over or when they apply for a job, there will always be the stamp of “Oh this guy was once charged for burglary”, even though those men were doing their job that night.