What Happened at Black Hat
TechTarget, Tuesday, August 19th, 2025
A first-time attendee's account of Black Hat 2026 vendor events, the NOC tour, and community moments.
Cyber Defense Magazine reporter Arya Baviskar recounts a first Black Hat with more than 20,000 attendees and 400 booths.
Highlights include the House of SOC evening hosted by Fig Security and Cribl, a Women in Cyber workout hosted by Seemplicity and Cyera, and a Zluri outing to the Las Vegas Grand Prix track.
A tour of Black Hat's Network Operations Center led by Bart Stump and Neil Wyler revealed that systems flagged more than 9 million potential threats over the week, of which only 308 required blocking.
A talk hosted by Illumio featuring former cybercriminal Brett Johnson underscored that trust remains the first thing an attacker exploits. Across interviews, one theme recurred: AI brings positive possibility, not only risk.