What to Expect at Black Hat 2022
Almost every August, Las Vegas fills to the brim with a curious cross-section of visitors: hackers, researchers, hobbyists, and everyone else who has an interest in making computers do things they shouldn't. They're in town for Black Hat (and its less formal sibling event, DEF CON), and PCMag will be there, too. Here's what we're looking forward to this year.
In 2020, just months into the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Black Hat switched to an entirely remote event, with presenters and attendees interacting via an online platform. The show returned as a hybrid event in 2021, with both in-person and virtual components. That has continued into 2022.
Attendees will be making their own personal risk assessments, and PCMag is no different. Three of us will be attending remotely, tuning from three different states to see the latest and scariest revelations. One of PCMag's reporters will be attending onsite, dodging airborne viruses as well as computerized ones.
Unlike this year's RSAC, Black Hat's virtual offering is particularly robust. That may prove to be a very good thing, as some RSAC attendees complained of almost nonexistent face masking. That conference did not keep tabs on infections, but some have already declared it to be a super-spreader event.
There is a bitter irony in security conferences, which are all about managing risky situations, becoming sites of disease infections. We hope everyone attending Black Hat and DEF CON in person this year makes it home healthy.
2022 marks the 25th birthday of Black Hat, which debuted in 1997, when DEF CON was only five years old. This auspicious milestone is the focus of the 2022 keynote from Chris Krebs, the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
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