How to Become a Black Hat Speaker?
By @UnaPibaGeek (Sheila A. Berta, Black Hat Review Board Member)
Here are some tips to increase your chances of becoming a speaker.
1. Choose your research carefully: If you haven't done it yet, think about something unexplored... something that noone else (or few people) have researched so far. Break something new / be innovative, focus on discovering a newtechnique, new ways to attack or defend something.
2. Take a look at previous work: Once you've chosen your research, google all previous work. It's also a good idea toreview what has already been presented at BLACK Hat in this regard. If your research has already been done bysomeone else, think of something different.
3. Perform your research and document it as much as possible: Write down every step, take screenshots, record
videos. All this material will be really helpful when writing your CFP proposal and further presentation. If you can write awhite paper even better!
4. CFP Time! Talk title: This is what people pay most attention to when deciding whether to attend. The title must be
attractive, but be careful! Be sure to *properly manage expectations*. If you say "Hacking satellites (...)", people will
expect that to actually happen...
5. Abstract: It should be 2‐3 paragraphs long. Try to sum up what is most interesting about your research, what makes it
novel, the impact it has, or the problem it solves. It's also a good idea to mention a little of what you plan toexplain/show during the presentation.
6. Presentation outline: This is for the review board and is very important. Try to explain here what you're going topresent at every part of your talk. From the introduction to the end: all the topics that you will cover, the demos you will
do, etc. The presentation outline should be the most difficult part of the CFP form. You really have to sit down and think
about what you're going to show at each point in your presentation, and try to explain it to the review board. Include
bullet points and even short paragraphs.
7. Takeaways and other questions: You will find other questions in the CFP form where it is necessary to enhance themost important takeaways of your research, the novel part, etc. These will be easier to answer if you have detailed theprevious questions well.
8. Other tips ‐ Track selection: In the Black Hat CFP form, you have to choose the track(s) of your talk. This is more
important than you think... Reviewers are assigned to tracks, if you want your talk to be reviewed by the SMEs, choose
the right one. You will find track descriptions here: https://blackhat.com/html/tracks.html
9. Other tips ‐ 100% new material: We (reviewers, at least at Black Hat) prioritize talks that have never been presentedelsewhere before. Having 100% new research is important to us. If you will disclose your research before Black Hat’sdate(s), your proposal will have a lower priority.
10. Other tips ‐ Timing: Most of the talk proposals are submitted literally at the last minute. That means we have tohurry up and review most of them in just 2‐3 weeks. Such thing reduces our chances to ask you for more details andbetter understand your proposal.
11. Other tips ‐ Do not send commercial speeches. We do not accept sales pitches at the Black Hat Briefings stage. Inthat case look for the sponsored sessions. Many people think we do, while it is one of the main reasons why we rejecttalks.