The latest from Black Hat USA 2025

• 
  Article

  Identity and data security themes at Black Hat 2025

  Read about the identity and data security happenings at Black Hat 2025, including advancements that enable AI adoption and products that help prepare for a post-quantum world. Read Now

1News from the conference floor

Black Hat presenters divulged the latest attacks and sounded warning bells on what could be coming next.

• Article

  How an AI-based 'pen tester' became a top bug hunter on HackerOne

  AI researcher explains how an automated penetration-testing tool became the first non-human member on HackerOne to reach the top of the platform's US leaderboard. Read Now

• Article

  Black Hat NOC expands AI implementation across security operations

  Corelight's James Pope gives Dark Reading an inside look at this year's Black Hat Network Operations Center, detailing security challenges and rising trends -- many related to increased AI use. Read Now

• Article

  Cyber experts ponder a non-government future for the CVE program

  Organizations supporting the security vulnerability program said it needed changes to improve stability and rebuild trust. Read Now

• Article

  Research shows AI agents are highly vulnerable to hijacking attacks

  Experts from Zenity Labs demonstrated how attackers could exploit widely deployed AI technologies for data theft and manipulation. Read Now

• Article

  Prime Security wins Black Hat's Startup Spotlight Competition

  Security startups of all stripes submitted applications for Black Hat USA's Startup Spotlight. Prime Security won with its AI security architect platform. Read Now

• Article

  Researcher deploys fuzzer to test autonomous vehicle safety

  As autonomous vehicles continue to evolve, new research highlights the importance of rigorous security testing to protect against both intentional attacks and unintentional unsafe commands in teleoperation systems. Read Now

• Article

  Citizen Lab founder flags rise of U.S. authoritarianism

  Citizen Lab director and founder Ron Deibert explained how civil society is locked in 'vicious cycle,' and human rights are being abused as a result, covering Israeli spyware, the Khashoggi killing, and an erosion of democratic norms in the U.S. Read Now

• Article

  Black Hat USA: Startup breaks secrets management tools

  Researchers at Cyata, an agentic identity specialist that has just emerged from stealth, found 14 CVEs in the widely used CyberArk Conjur and HashiCorp Vault enterprise secrets management platforms Read Now

• Article

  VexTrio cybercrime outfit run by legit ad tech firms

  New research reveals that a malicious traffic distribution system (TDS) is run not by 'hackers in hoodies,' but by a series of corporations operating in the commercial digital advertising industry. Read Now

• Article

  To raise or not to raise: Bootstrapped founders share their views

  A trio of startup founders -- GreyNoise's Andrew Morris, Thinkst Canary's Haroon Meer, and runZero's HD Moore -- agree that raising venture capital funding can be beneficial, but a company's success depends on how well the product fits customer needs. Read Now

• Article

  Black Hat USA: Halcyon and Sophos tag-team ransomware fightback

  Ransomware experts Halcyon and Sophos are to pool their expertise in ransomware, working together to enhance data- and intelligence-sharing and bringing more comprehensive protection to customers Read Now

2Vulnerabilities in the spotlight

Researchers and hackers showcased new proofs of concept, attack techniques and bugs, as well as security best practices and mitigation techniques to combat them.

• Article

  Researchers warn of 'hidden risks' in passwordless account recovery

  Passwordless authentication is becoming more common, but account recovery poses increased risks that can lead to account takeovers. It's especially dangerous because even low-skilled attackers can achieve success. Read Now

• Article

  Privilege escalation issue in Amazon ECS leads to IAM hijacking

  A software developer discovered a way to abuse an undocumented protocol in Amazon's Elastic Container Service to escalate privileges, cross boundaries, and gain access to other cloud resources. Read Now

• Article

  Google Gemini AI bot hijacks smart homes, turns off the lights

  Using invisible prompts, the attacks demonstrate a physical risk that could soon become reality as the world increasingly becomes more interconnected with artificial intelligence. Read Now

• Article

  Critical zero-day bugs crack open CyberArk, HashiCorp password vaults

  Secrets managers hold all the keys to an enterprise's kingdom. Two popular ones had longstanding, critical, unauthenticated RCE vulnerabilities. Read Now

• Article

  'ReVault' security flaws impact millions of Dell laptops

  The now-patched vulnerabilities exist at the firmware level and enable deep persistence on compromised systems. Read Now

• Article

  Agentic AI a target-rich zone for cyber attackers in 2025

  At Black Hat USA 2025, CrowdStrike warns that cyber criminals and nation-states are weaponising GenAI to scale attacks and target AI agents, turning autonomous systems against their makers Read Now

3Government happenings at Black Hat USA

The U.S. government and agencies, including CISA and NSA, shared insights into their latest cybersecurity initiatives and trends.

• Article

  Trump administration cyber cuts eroding private sector’s trust, confidence

  A report by Swimlane shows companies are reducing cybersecurity spending and security teams are experiencing increasing pressure. Read Now

• Article

  CISA officials say agency is moving ahead despite workforce purge

  Two senior officials defended the agency’s progress amid concerns about the effects of mass layoffs and budget cuts. Read Now

• Article

  CISA's relationship with industry needs work to reestablish trust, experts say

  Critics say budget cuts, job losses have hurt the agency's ability to coordinate with private industry. Read Now

• Article

  NSA partnering with cyber firms to support under-resourced defense contractors

  The spy agency has sought out creative ways to help protect small companies supplying the U.S. military. Read Now

• Article

  U.S. still prioritizing zero-trust migration to limit hacks' damage

  The zero-trust initiative, which gained steam during the Biden administration, is still underway. Read Now

4Videos from the show

The Black Hat USA 2025 News Desk had many visitors, covering topics from agentic AI to outer space.

• Article

  How outer space became the next big attack surface

  VisionSpace Technologies' Andrzej Olchawa and Milenko Starcik discussed a set of vulnerabilities capable of ending space missions at the Black Hat USA 2025 News Desk. Read Now

• Article

  AI agents access everything, fall to zero-click exploit

  Zenity CTO Michael Bargury joins the Black Hat USA 2025 News Desk to discuss research on a dangerous exploit, how generative AI technology has "grown arms and legs" -- and what that means for cyber-risk. Read Now

• Article

  Agentic AI, Apple Intelligence, EV chargers: Everyday cybersecurity peril abounds

  Cybersecurity risks can come from everywhere, as these riveting Dark Reading News Desk videos detail. Check out Part 1 of our broadcast coverage of the top research presented at Black Hat USA 2025. Read Now

• Article

  System shocks? EV smart charging tech poses cyber-risks

  Trend Micro's Salvatore Gariuolo talks with the Black Hat USA 2025 News Desk about how the new ISO 15118 standard for electric vehicle smart charging and vehicle-to-grid communications can be weaponized by threat actors. Read Now

• Article

  Why video game anti-cheat systems are a cybersecurity goldmine

  Sam Collins and Marius Muench of the University of Birmingham, UK, join the Black Hat USA 2025 News Desk to explain how anti-cheat systems in video games provide valuable lessons on defending against threat actors' techniques and strategies. Read Now

• Article

  How architectural controls can help fill the AI security gap

  NCC Group's David Brauchler III shares how foundational controls and threat modeling strategies can help secure agentic AI tools in ways traditional guardrails can't. Read Now

• Article

  Tree of AST: A bug-hunting framework powered by LLMs

  Teenaged security researchers Sasha Zyuzin and Ruikai Peng discuss how their new vulnerability discovery framework leverages LLMs to address limitations of the past. Read Now

5DEF CON

Black Hat USA was followed by DEF CON 33, the three-day hacking conference also held in Las Vegas.

• Article

  How to vibe code with security in mind

  As more organizations integrate vibe coding and AI-assisted coding into their application development processes, it's important to remember to put security first. Read Now

• Article

  REvil actor accuses Russia of planning 2021 Kaseya attack

  REvil affiliate Yaroslav Vasinskyi, who was convicted last year for his role in the 2021 Kaseya ransomware supply chain attack, said the Russian government was instrumental to the attack's execution. Read Now

• Article

  Utilities, factories at risk From encryption holes in industrial protocol

  The OPC UA communication protocol is widely used in industrial settings, but despite its complex cryptography, the open source protocol appears to be vulnerable in a number of different ways. Read Now

6Black Hat USA 2025 pre-conference coverage

Black Hat 2025 will look at a variety of topics. Check out our pre-show coverage here.

• Article

  Dark Reading News Desk turns 10, back at Black Hat USA for 2025

  Dark Reading's 2025 News Desk marks a decade of Black Hat USA memories. We're making our return with a slate of interviews that help you stay up on the latest research from Black Hat — no trip to Las Vegas required. Read Now

• Article

  Stop AI bot traffic: Protecting your organization's website

  As crawlers and bots bog down websites in the era of AI, some researchers say that the solution for the Internet's most vulnerable websites is already here. Read Now

• Article

  Black Hat 2025: Navigating AI and supply chain security

  Experts at the conference will discuss how AI impacts software supply chain security, highlighting challenges and strategies for developers and security teams. Read Now

• Article

  New 'Shade BIOS' technique beats every kind of security

  What if malware didn't require an operating system to function? How would anyone possibly notice, let alone disable it? Read Now

• Article

  Low-code tools in Microsoft Azure allowed unprivileged access

  Using the API Connections for Azure Logic Apps, a security researcher found unauthenticated users could access sensitive data of other customers. Read Now

• Article

  Human digital twins could give attackers a dangerous advantage

  While this emerging impersonation technology offers many benefits, digital twins also have several drawbacks, including use in social engineering attacks. Read Now

• Article

  Malicious implants are coming to AI components, applications

  A red teamer is publishing research next month about how weaknesses in modern security products lay the groundwork for stealthy implants in AI-powered applications. Read Now

• Article

  Women who 'hacked the status quo' aim to inspire cybersecurity careers

  A group of female cybersecurity pioneers will share what they've learned about navigating a field dominated by men, in order to help other women empower themselves and pursue successful cybersecurity careers. Read Now

• Article

  An Nvidia container bug and chance to harden Kubernetes

  A container escape flaw involving the NVIDIA Container Toolkit could have enabled a threat actor to access AI datasets across tenants. Read Now

• Article

  New AI malware PoC reliably evades Microsoft Defender

  Worried about hackers employing LLMs to write powerful malware? Using targeted reinforcement learning (RL) to train open source models in specific tasks has yielded the capability to do just that. Read Now

• Article

  Ransomware reshaped how cyber insurers perform security assessments

  Cyber-insurance companies were forced to adapt once ransomware skyrocketed and highlighted crucial security weaknesses among organizations in all sectors. Read Now

• Article

  We've all been wrong: Phishing training doesn't work

  Teaching employees to detect malicious emails isn't really having an impact. What other options do organizations have? Read Now

• Article

  Rethinking cyber-risk as traditional models fall short

  Systemic cyber-risk models are not accounting for rapidly evolving threats -- and a time when organizations are more interconnected than ever. Read Now

• Article

  Hackers make hay? Smart tractors vulnerable to full takeover

  Hackers can spy on tens of thousands of connected tractors in the latest IoT threat, and brick them too, thanks to poor security in an aftermarket steering system. Read Now

7Black Hat 2024 recap

Last year's Black Hat USA conference covered a range of essential topics. Here is an array of highlights to get you up to speed and prepare for this year's event.

• Podcast

  Risk & Repeat: Recapping Black Hat USA 2024

  Highlights from Black Hat USA 2024 include a keynote panel on securing election infrastructure as well as several sessions on potential threats against new AI technology. Listen Now

• Article

  Black Hat USA 2024 Highlights

  Check out all the highlights from Black Hat USA 2024 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Read Now

• Article

  Black Hat USA 2024 takeaways for data security and IAM

  Black Hat USA 2024 showcased recurring themes of data security and IAM, encompassing the platform vs. point product debate, cleaning identity data and GenAI security. Read Now

• Article

  Cyber-risk management: Key takeaways from Black Hat 2024

  Product updates announced at Black Hat USA 2024 can help security teams better manage constantly changing attack surfaces and ensure new AI projects won't pose security risks. Read Now

• Article

  CrowdStrike, AI dominate conversation at Black Hat USA 2024

  Although the trend of vendors pitching AI-powered products nonstop has continued at Black Hat USA 2024, CrowdStrike and the recent IT outage was an even larger point of discussion. Read Now