when: August 1-4, 2026 (Trainings)
August 5-6, 2026 (Briefings)
where: Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas
web: https://blackhat.com/us-26/
Black Hat USA 2026
Black Hat USA returns to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center August 1-6, 2026. Trainings run August 1-4, followed by the two-day Briefings August 5-6, alongside the Arsenal open-source tool demos and a sprawling Business Hall.
Black Hat Background
Black Hat was created in 1997 to provide security professionals a place to learn the very latest in information security risks, research and trends. The Black Hat conference was created in response to security professionals who, previously, were unable to attend DEF CON due to social stigma associated with the conference. Today, that is not the case. Two cultures prevail in both DEF CON and Black Hat, and Black Hat is viewed as the corporate junior to its older, free-spirited sibling.
The conference offers two sections - Briefings and Trainings, and is viewed as a corporate security conference unlike DEF CON. Each year, internationally leading security researchers take the stage to share their latest work and exploits in a friendly, vendor-neutral environment. Vulnerabilities are often exposed that impact everything from popular consumer devices to critical international infrastructure and everything in between.
Black Hat Trainings offer attendees individual technical courses on topics ranging from the latest in penetration testing to exploiting web applications and even defending and building industrial control systems. Often designed exclusively for Black Hat, these hands-on attack and defense courses are taught by industry and subject matter experts from all over the world with the goal of defining and defending tomorrow’s information security landscape.
From its inception in 1997, Black Hat has grown from a single annual conference in Las Vegas to a conference series held annually in the United States, Europe and Asia.