Black Hat or DEF CON: Which Should You Attend?

If you've worked or even dabbled in the cybersecurity space for a bit, you're likely familiar with the two behemoths of the infosec conference world: Black Hat and DEF CON. Annually, Las Vegas becomes "Hacker Summer Camp" as thousands of security professionals and hobbyists alike descend on the Neon City to learn, mingle, and sample the latest wares. But which one should you grace with your presence (and hard-earned budget)? Well, hold on to your sponsor-branded lanyard because I attended both and prepared some valuable intel on which con YOU should attend!

Black Hat: The Suit-and-Tie Affair

Black Hat USA, the more corporate-friendly of the two, kicked off its 2024 edition from August 3-8 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Think of Black Hat as the prom queen of cybersecurity conferences – polished, poised, professional, and always pumped for portraits.

With all of that pomp comes a price, though: This event is priced in a way that makes you feel like they don’t want just anyone showing up. Black Hat USA 2024's ticket price was a whopping $2599 for early purchases of the Briefing Pass. With that, you would have access to the Briefings, Arsenal (product and tool demonstrations by their creators), The Business Hall (The Trade Show), the Keynote presentations, and included breakfast + lunch (which actually adds up considering it will cost you $25 for a burger, fries, and soft drink in the food court of any casino and convention center). Vegas, baby!  

Training

If you want to show up for the first 4 days, you will find a wealth of specialized, hands-on training courses to build up your skills, increase your knowledge, or at the very least add some more CPE hours to your belt. Note that the training sessions come at an additional cost, so if you are doing training sessions all 4 days you could reasonably expect your ticket price to almost TRIPLE. But before you scoff at the hefty price tag, you can safely assume you are receiving world-class instruction from masters in that particular topic. Many of these instructors literally wrote the book on their subject matter. If the training isn't in your budget, you can essentially skip the first 4 days and just show up on day 5 for the Keynote.

Keynote 

The Opening Keynote is ALWAYS a treat. When you ask yourself why the briefings badge around your neck was so expensive, you are promptly reminded by the top-tier production that is pumped into the keynote presentation. Picture this: You're sitting in a dark arena with droning, ominous ambient electronic music saturating the air as hundreds of programmable LEDs and laser FXs color the smoke-filled auditorium to complete the Audio/Visual sensation of anticipation. A countdown begins as the music ramps up in intensity. An automated announcement booms over the bed of music to request that your phone be put on silent mode. It's like attending an EDM show, but instead of a DJ dropping the bass, Black Hat founder Jeff Moss pops out and drops a few thoughts on the current state of cybersecurity before handing it over to the featured topic this round: “Democracy’s Biggest Year: The Fight for Secure Elections Around the World”.

Business Hall

Directly after the Keynote, the Business Hall opens its doors and you enter into a massive space overflowing with vendor booths the size of small houses. As you navigate through a sea of cyber-pros sporting company polos and vendor-branded backpacks, you find yourself dodging enthusiastic vendors attempting to lure wide-eyed attendees with one-pagers, raffle tickets, and logo-marked trinkets. The air buzzes with tech jargon and the faint scent of coffee as you ping-pong between booths, collecting enough stress balls and stickers to open a small retail outlet. Amidst demonstrations of the latest "AI-Integrated" solutions and promises of "Zero-Trust Architecture," you nod sagely, secretly wondering if this product does something different that the other 30 vendors in the space. You start placing bets with yourself on how long it will take before the API security startup you just spoke to will be bought out by a bigger fish. Every booth near which you loiter will have a representative ask to 'scan your badge', and you will let them because you're not a jerk. You can already feel the eventual avalanche of emails overwhelming your work inbox with invites to follow-up calls and more product demos, but at least they gave you a keychain for your trouble.

As the day wears on, your step count rivals that of a marathon runner, fueled by an unholy combination of caffeine, adrenaline, and the fear of missing out on the next big thing in InfoSec (spoiler alert: it's AI). As you depart to your hotel for the evening, your tote bag is brimming with free swag (stickers, pens, buttons, adapters, shirts, hats, bags, prizes, etc.). Pro Tip: I would recommend packing for your trip with some space in your luggage to accommodate all of the useful and useless junk you'll be bringing home afterwards.

Briefings

Concurrent with the 2 days of the Business Hall, the Briefings are running as well. You will definitely want to attend a handful in person, and there are literally scores of topics and speakers for each. It is physically impossible to attend even a quarter of the briefings in the flesh… but lucky for you, your Briefings ticket purchase also gives you access to the video recordings of every briefing that year. Now you can binge talks covering AI/LLM vulnerabilities and cybersecurity insurance best practices from anywhere!

Networking

A less-official benefit of attending Black Hat are the various sponsored events and parties that begin when the Business Hall closes for the night. These are a fantastic way to cut loose and meet like-minded professionals in interesting environments.  One night, you're having whiskey at a prohibition-themed speakeasy, the next night partying it up with the DJ at a dance club… Then you cap off the conference with a steak dinner at a 5-star invite-only event. Many vendors will go to great lengths to pamper their current and potential customers, so it pays to play nice and shmooze the vendors that host events at the cool venues.

In Summary:

• Training: Four days of hands-on courses to level up your skills.
• Briefings: Live, in-person sessions covering a wide range of cybersecurity topics.
• Business Hall: 2 days where vendors showcase their latest security solutions (and swag, let's be honest).
• Arsenal: Demos of open-source tools by their creators.

Pros:

• Perfect for networking with industry associates and bigwigs
• Ideal for staying abreast of enterprise-level threats and solutions
• Great for impressing your boss with "actionable insights"

Cons:

• Ticket is pricier than your average flight, hotel, and food expenses combined.
• Can feel a bit stuffy for the more rebellious types
• Less hands-on hacking, more PowerPoint presentations

DEF CON: The Wild Child of Infosec

DEF CON 32 followed hot on the heels of Black Hat, running from August 8-11 at the Las Vegas Convention Center - West Hall. I could write an entirely separate article on my first experience at DEF CON, but for sake of brevity I'll keep it somewhat concise. If Black Hat is the prom queen, DEF CON is the kid who ditched prom to throw a lan-party rager in their parents' basement.

In contrast to the exorbitant price of attending Black Hat, the $480 entry to DEF CON feels like a steal! The badge this year was a versatile, cat-shaped microcontroller built with the Raspberry Pi RP2350, featuring an ABS injection-molded case, customizable options for LEDs, SAOs, classic ROMs, and firmware, and equipped with a screen flip/orientation sensor for wearable gameplay. The SD Card that came with the badge contained an official music playlist, a DEF CON themed, top-down RPG game, and the digital version of the conference handbook.

Villages

The villages are the heart (and various other internal organs) of the body that is DEF CON. Wandering through the 3-level labyrinth, you'll discover that each village offers its own unique flavor of mischief and mastery. You will find yourself in a world where lockpicking is an art form and car hacking is a spectator sport. In the Aerospace Village, you might witness someone trying to hijack a drone with nothing but a laptop and a dream. Meanwhile, at the Social Engineering Village, you'll learn how to convince strangers to hand over their deepest secrets using only your voice and a carefully crafted pretext (backstory). Some of my personal favorites were the aforementioned Lockpicking, Car Hacking, Aerospace, and Social Engineering villages along with the IoT, Recon, Ham Radio, Physical Security, and XR Villages.

As you navigate the sea of laptops and soldering irons, you'll encounter the infamous Wall of Sheep, where the digital sins of the careless are displayed for all to see. Pro tip: Maybe don't check your bank account on the public Wi-Fi unless you want your username plastered across a giant screen. If you want new toys to play with, you can browse the wares of multiple vendors. Among the items for sale were lockpicks, remote network access tools, RF analyzers, secure smartphones, security software, and vendor apparel.

Contests

Something that I regret missing out on this year was the opportunity to participate in the many hacking contests held throughout DEF CON. The flagship Capture The Flag (CTF) contest once again proved to be the centerpiece, with teams from around the globe battling for supremacy in a grueling 96-hour hacking marathon. Alongside the multiple CTFs, the Social Engineering Village hosted its annual competition, where contestants demonstrated their ability to manipulate human behavior and extract sensitive information through non-technical means. Imagine watching a social engineer in a soundproof booth on a stage smooth-talking a real customer service representative over the phone… with the intent of gleaning sensitive data and changing account information that they shouldn't have access to!

The convention also featured several specialized contests that catered to niche interests within the hacking community. The Car Hacking Village ran a series of automotive security challenges, pushing participants to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in modern vehicle systems. Meanwhile, the Lock Picking Village hosted speed competitions that tested contestants' manual dexterity and understanding of physical security mechanisms. New to this year's lineup was the expanded Bug Bounty Village, which offered a platform for hackers to discover and report real-world vulnerabilities in participating companies' systems, with substantial cash prizes awarded for critical findings. As always, the coveted Black Badges – lifetime free admission to DEF CON – were awarded to the top performers in select contests, cementing their status in the hacker hall of fame.

Talks

In a similar (but hackier) fashion to the Briefings of Black Hat, DEF CON's Talks were a veritable smorgasbord of security delights & debriefs… serving up everything from cutting-edge AI exploits to old-school lock-picking techniques. Attendees flocked to the many tracks and presentation stages to learn the latest in digital mischief and defense tactics. Speakers ranged from grizzled industry veterans to fresh-faced prodigies, each bringing their unique flavor to the information security potluck. Standout presentations included a deep dive into the murky world of supply chain attacks, a hilarious (yet unsettling) demonstration of voice cloning technology, and a surprisingly riveting talk on the security implications of smart toilets.

Parties & Events

If you come to work hard and play harder, DEF CON's after-hours scene is typically a whirlwind of excitement that keeps attendees buzzing long after the conference halls empty. This year the event organizers outdid themselves, transforming the Las Vegas Convention Center into a playground for the hacker community.

Thursday night featured cyber-themed DJ sets on 2 different stages in the conference hall. Nerd-core rap brought down the house on Friday night, featuring the lyrical talents of Ohm-I, Dual Core, YTCracker, and MC frontalot. An electrifying moment was during Dual Core's set when he called all the rappers on stage to chant the hook to "All The Things". ::chef's kiss::

The highlight of the week though was undoubtedly the pirate-themed parrrrty on Saturday night. O'CRAVEN dropped anchor right before midnight, treating the crowd to a raucous performance of Celtic Pirate Rock. Attendees went all out, donning their most creative swashbuckling attire in hopes of claiming the $460 cash prize in the best-dressed pirate costume contest.

Throughout the duration of the convention, Soma.fm broadcasted DJs live from the 1st floor halls mixing chill electronica. There were also various, non-music related events that are too numerous to mention here.

All in all, by the end of DEF CON your brain will be overflowing with new knowledge, your laptop might be slightly more paranoid, and you'll have a newfound appreciation for the art of wearing all black in 115°F heat.

Personally, I felt like I found my tribe. While Black Hat focuses more on the infosec professional/vendor relationships and the business of cybersecurity, DEF CON hosts attendees from all walks of life (pros, enthusiasts, amateurs) and wholly embraces the hacker culture. The nerd comradery is palpable and endearing. I even had the privilege of meeting some of my hacking heroes! Over the course of 4 days I made life-long friends and gained critical knowledge and skills. It was overwhelming at times, but overall DEF CON was an incredible experience I won't soon forget!

To Summarize:

• Villages: Themed areas for hands-on learning and hacking.
• Contests: Test your skills against fellow hackers in various challenges.
• Talks: From deep technical dives to social engineering stories.
• Culture: Hacking, Music, Art, Shenanigans, & Community mixed together

Pros:

• More hands-on experiences and practical skills
• A wilder, more casual atmosphere
• The badge is usually a hackable piece of hardware (this year, it was the aforementioned Raspberry Pi-powered Game Boy Color emulator)
• So much to learn and experience for a reasonable price

Cons:

• Can be overwhelming for newbies
• Less structured (and funded) than Black Hat
• You might leave questioning your entire security infrastructure (and life choices)
• Because of the stigma around "hackers", it's always a toss up where DEF CON will be hosted each year.

The Verdict

If you're looking for a more structured, business-oriented experience with a focus on enterprise-level threats and solutions, Black Hat is your jam. It's perfect for those who need to justify the trip to the higher-ups with concrete takeaways. If you're after a more immersive, hands-on experience and don't mind a bit of chaos, DEF CON will be your hacker playground. It's ideal for those who want to get their hands dirty and push their skills to the limit. BEST ANSWER: If you can swing it, why not do both? Many attendees hit up Black Hat for the briefings and training, then stick around for DEF CON to let their hair down and practice what they've learned. Whichever you choose, you're in for a great time. I hope to see you next year at Hacker Summer Camp!