(Credit: James Martin/Black Hat)
Malware coders and criminal hackers do what they do for one reason—it makes money. So what motivates the security experts who oppose them? Why do they devote their skills to protecting innocent people and networks? Well, they generally get paid well for their work, but the real reward is peer recognition and admiration. One big reason so many security researchers and white hat hackers gather every year at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas is to share their discoveries with an audience who can understand them, and to receive their deserved accolades.
For the 20,000-plus attendees, the conference starts with three days of cybersecurity training. They learn how to reverse engineer malware code and apply penetration testing techniques with finesse, as well as engage with an assortment of techniques for hacking and defending against hacks. After those training days are done, Black Hat invites the press to join the attendees and share in two days of briefings. That’s where we learn about the latest system vulnerabilities, clever hacks, and new defenses.
The Black Hat Briefings pack more than 100 sessions into two days, way more than any individual or team could cover. We’ll attend the sessions that look most important, terrifying, or both, and report what we’ve learned on our Black Hat page. For now, here's a taste of what we expect.
Hacking in the Real World
We learned at last year’s Black Hat that hackers were turning their attention to EV chargers. At that time, the consequences were fiddly things like messing up your charging schedule or tweaking your billing. The stakes are higher this time around. A team from Trend Micro plans to demonstrate how EV charger hacking can do serious damage, including making the charger overheat and catch fire. Our Trend Micro contact promises some hair-raising videos. And, of course, they’ll present advice for avoiding an inferno in your garage.
The whole point of setting up a surveillance camera system is to improve the security of your home or business. But if your cameras get hacked, or if they were subverted somewhere in the supply chain, you’ve got a major security problem. One researcher took a deep dive into a very widely used camera brand and made some alarming discoveries. We look forward to learning the gory details.
We hear a lot about criminals using AI for nefarious purposes—creating deepfakes, capturing personal information, profiling users, and so on. A team from Bitdefender will demonstrate that there’s no need for AI when you have a ton of data and understand statistics. By processing the DNS requests that your phone sends constantly, they managed to profile user behaviors, single out individual devices, and even track users from network to network.
Network Security and Insecurity
An event like Black Hat necessarily maintains its own ultra-secure network, run from its Network Operations Center (NOC). Naturally, the facility uses and showcases all the latest security technology. We’re definitely looking forward to a guided tour of Black Hat’s dedicated NOC.
Every day, hackers try to break into major corporate networks, and every day, network defense systems try to block those attacks. Typically, the attack starts with the injection of a tiny program that awaits instructions to expand its foothold in the target network. But network monitoring programs can detect the remote-control instructions to that tiny program and wall off the intrusion. The key for a hacker is to find a way to send command and control messages without being caught. Attendees at one Black Hat session will not only learn how emulating video conference traffic works to evade defenses, they’ll go home with a virtual swag bag containing a working demonstration of the technique.
The news reports strange behaviors from house robbers, from making a sandwich to taking a nap to leaving their wallet behind. Info-stealing malware won’t leave sandwich wrappers on your computer, but it very well may drop some selfies or leave an incriminating log file. A security team from threat intelligence company Flare focused the power of AI on these left-behind scraps and found a new way to detect info-stealing campaigns and derail them from causing further damage. They plan a live demo to show just how this technique works.
All AI, All the Time
The US Military has been pitting human test subjects against AI-generated twins to see which group is better at manipulation and deception. That scenario sounds like the opening scene of a Terminator-adjacent film, but data from these experiments may reveal LLMs' efficacy when manipulating humans' cognitive biases, perceptual limitations, and social norms. This year in Las Vegas, researchers will show some of the results from these experiments, while also explaining how the same technology can be used by online scammers to automate the social engineering process.
Recommended by Our Editors
DARPA’s Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) is a long-term project, running for two years. At the RSAC conference earlier this year, we learned about the project’s background through the trippy AIxCC Experience. The contest is now over, and the final winners will be announced at DEF CON, which occurs right after Black Hat. Contenders had to create a large language model capable of reading millions of lines of code, finding any security holes, and patching those holes. For the final stage, the seven finalists turned over their LLMs to DARPA for testing. First, second, and third-place winners will receive $4 million, $3 million, and $1.5 million, respectively, with the proviso that they must open-source their LLMs.
Google Gemini is a marvelous assistant that can do all manner of things for you, from summarizing emails to controlling smart appliances. That also means that a ne’er-do-well who gains control of your Gemini installation can totally wreak havoc on your life. We look forward with some trepidation to a presentation showing that something as innocent-seeming as a calendar invitation—even if you never open it—can be the first step in turning your AI assistant to the dark side.
Apple Intelligence, like its fellow AI offerings from Google, Microsoft, and the like, promises to enhance productivity. It even claims to take special care of your privacy, keeping its processing on your local device. But does it, really? One researcher thinks not, and comes armed with evidence of personal data sent to Apple’s servers, along with other privacy concerns.
Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus has written five books on AI and human cognition. He comes to Black Hat not with a chart-infested PowerPoint presentation but with a fireside chat. He’ll discuss (and deflate) the hype surrounding generative AI and the pitfalls of engaging AI for cybersecurity tasks that really should be handled by our brains.
Generative AI systems can write code, draw pictures, and even give relationship advice. Built-in guardrails prevent them from, say, writing malware or supplying bomb-making advice. According to one speaker, removing those guardrails and creating a dedicated non-public LLM can be an effective way to create malware and devise techniques for evading antivirus detection. Such an LLM would be used only for research. We think…
Hacking Business and Government
After revealing a network of scammers behind popular online gambling platforms last year, the team at Infoblox returns to Black Hat to emphasize the importance of threat intelligence monitoring, especially in corporate settings. This year, the team plans to present evidence that criminals are leveraging the same traffic distribution systems used by advertisers to target potential victims. The presenters will also explain how businesses can fend off malicious adtech with effective network monitoring.
Starting in 2024, layoffs decimated jobs in the tech sector, but one field remains a beacon for people seeking well-paying, entry-level jobs with opportunities for training and career advancement. What field? Cybersecurity, naturally. That's why, at this year's conference, a panel of women from the Black Hat USA Review Board will share stories about their career strategies while connecting with attendees from around the globe.
Turn on the news, and you invariably see the latest report on the current administration’s dismantling of constitutional rights and government as we know it. Attending Black Hat is a chance to put politics aside and worry instead about supply chain attacks, rogue AIs, and ransomware gangs. Or is it? Jennifer Granick, an ACLU lawyer, contends that our legal system stinks at threat modeling, something security wonks live for. Her keynote will detail the problem and (we hope) reveal some solutions.
Follow Our Black Hat 2025 Coverage
Make sure to follow along as we document this year's biggest cybersecurity news on our Black Hat page. Once the crowds have departed (or headed across town to DEF CON), we’ll share a recap of the sessions that made the biggest impression on us.