BSides (security community)

BSides (security community) is a decentralized series of community-driven security conferences and information security meetups that emerged in 2009 as an alternative to large commercial conferences. The project emphasizes participatory conference format, speaker-friendly policies, and grassroots organization, attracting practitioners from cybersecurity, computer science, information technology, research institutions and industry. Event sites span North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Latin America, connecting professionals from organizations such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon (company), Cisco Systems and agencies including Department of Homeland Security and NSA-affiliated research communities.

History

BSides began in 2009 following coordination among organizers of Black Hat Briefings, DEF CON, RSA Conference and independent practitioners seeking an intimate alternative to established conferences. Early roots trace to collaborations involving figures from OWASP, SANS Institute, IEEE, ISSA and local security meetup organizers. Growth accelerated as chapters formed in cities like Las Vegas, New York City, London, Singapore and Sydney, inspired by community models used by Hackerspaces and Maker Faire organizers. The movement expanded alongside adjacent developments in open source communities, cyber threat intelligence sharing, vulnerability disclosure debates and initiatives by groups such as FIRST and ENISA.

Organization and Structure

BSides events operate via decentralized chapter models influenced by organizational approaches from Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation and Mozilla Foundation. Local organizing committees often include volunteers drawn from companies like IBM, Intel Corporation, Palantir Technologies and academic units of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Cambridge and University of California, Berkeley. Decision-making typically follows community governance similar to nonprofit organization practices used by Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons chapters. Funding sources mirror those of OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia events, combining small sponsorships from firms such as Rapid7, CrowdStrike, Tenable, Inc. and ticket revenues, with venue partnerships involving conference centers and university facilities like Carnegie Mellon University and University of Oxford.

Events and Conferences

BSides conferences are scheduled around major industry gatherings including Black Hat Briefings and DEF CON, offering parallel tracks and unconference formats that resemble sessions at SXSW and TED salons. Typical programming features capture the flag competitions similar to those at Pwn2Own and workshops akin to SANS Institute courses, alongside lightning talks modeled on Google Tech Talk sessions. Notable regional events have occurred in cities such as Las Vegas, San Francisco, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Seoul and Buenos Aires, often co-located with exhibitions by companies like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point Software Technologies and Trend Micro. Speakers have included researchers associated with CERT Coordination Center, Mandiant, Kaspersky Lab, FireEye, Symantec and independent authors of influential works such as those published by O'Reilly Media.

Community and Culture

The BSides culture emphasizes openness inspired by movements like open source and communities such as Chaos Computer Club and L0pht Heavy Industries. Volunteer-driven norms echo those of hackathon communities and crypto party gatherings, fostering peer review practices similar to arXiv preprint circulation and collaborative disclosure seen in Bug bounty programs run by HackerOne and Bugcrowd. Inclusivity initiatives mirror efforts by Women Who Code, Black Girls Code and Girls Who Code to broaden participation; partnerships have been formed with diversity programs from ISSA, (ISC)² and university outreach offices. Social activities commonly reference informal networking traditions present at DEF CON and ShmooCon, while code of conduct policies parallel frameworks used by Linux Foundation projects and PyCon.

Impact and Notable Contributions

BSides has influenced incident response practice and research dissemination alongside organizations like CERT, FIRST and MITRE; community disclosures and presentations have contributed to discussions around CVE entries managed by MITRE Corporation and remediation approaches referenced by NIST. Several talks originally presented at BSides were later amplified at Black Hat Briefings, RSA Conference and in journals associated with ACM and IEEE Computer Society. The network has incubated tools and methodologies adopted by vendors such as Splunk, Elastic NV and Tanium, and has supported talent pipelines feeding firms like Google, Microsoft and Amazon (company), as well as governmental labs at National Institute of Standards and Technology and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Community-led projects emerging from BSides chapters have intersected with standardization efforts from IETF and policy discussions involving European Commission cybersecurity initiatives. The movement's model informed other grassroots tech conferences, influencing formats at CubeCon, Graz Web Days and regional security meetup series.

Category:Computer security events