Call for Papers

Share your knowledge, research, and expertise with the community. Submit a talk proposal for the conference.

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Propose one or more talks across different tracks and session types.

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Track Status

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Security BSides Las Vegas 2026 Call For Papers

BSidesLV 2026 is accepting talk submissions across multiple tracks. Whether you're a seasoned researcher, a first-time speaker, or an experienced mentor looking to give back, there's a place for you.

Key Dates
  • CFP Opens: April 1
  • CFP Closes: May 8
  • Acceptances: Week of May 25 (rolling basis)
  • Proving Ground Pairing Notifications: May 15
Proving Ground

The Proving Ground program pairs first-time speakers with experienced mentors for four months of preparation leading up to a 25-minute talk on the BSidesLV stage. All cybersecurity topics are welcome. Speakers must have original research and not have previously presented a 20+ minute talk at an international security conference (1,000+ attendees). Mentors should have 3+ years in the industry and prior speaking experience.

What Accepted Speakers & Mentors Receive
  • Full BSidesLV conference access with breakfast and lunch
  • Invitation to the speaker reception and access to the speaker lounge
  • Program t-shirt and a special conference badge
  • A participant badge for a designated plus-one
  • Access to the reserved speaker hotel room block and rate
Tips for a Strong Submission

Include a clear abstract, a detailed description for reviewers, and a thorough outline with time allocations. Mention your tools, research links, and any demos you plan to give. Talks with detailed outlines have a better chance at getting accepted. Check out CFPs 101 from BSidesLV 2016 for more guidance.

Open Tracks

Open Breaking Ground

A track where hackers new and old can show off their latest and greatest while interacting with our participants and getting feedback, input and opinion. No preaching from the podium at a passive audience. It is a place where presenters can talk about their newest attack or defensive research, tools, new and novel approaches to InfoSec and to talk about the upcoming areas hackers should be digging into. Talks can vary from 20 to 45 minutes in length and typically include demos (live or otherwise). Some previous talks include reverse engineering malware in Go, network forensics in an encrypted world, anti-honeypot approach, hacking crypto currencies, 0-days in online services, mobile phone binary hacking.

Open Common Ground

All other topics of “common” interest to the security community. What should we, as hackers and the security community, know about? Talks in this track have included everything from hardware hacking to law & policy lock picking to mental health to appsec, and everything in between. Talks often but not always assume only minimal specialized background; they are always framed and interactive discussions with your peers and fellow researchers. No passive lectures “at” an audience.

Open Ground Truth

A place where hackers, academics, and data science practitioners can share ideas, ask questions, and compare notes. It is a venue for talks rooted in scientific approaches to infosec, such as statistical analysis, machine learning, and less common disciplines like linguistics. We are excited to showcase talks on theoretical topics, examples of successful and failed attempts to apply techniques in practice, software and data set releases, and discussions of relevant techniques from related fields. Some past topics of interest have included: data processes, methods for getting or cleaning data, basic statistics done well, data visualization, real science (scientific method/hypothesis testing), practical applications of data science in production, academic research (both student and faculty), machine learning, attacking machine learning and data science, risks of machine learning and data science, and the use of analytics to discover the story told by the data.

Open Hire Ground

A career-focused track with sessions to provide the tools and knowledge needed for job search and career development.

Open I Am The Cavalry

The I Am The Cavalry track focuses on security issues that can affect public safety and human life, across our domains: Transportation, Healthcare, Infrastructure, and Home IoT. Discussions cover technical, public policy, societal, and media topics. Our goal is to catalyze action faster than it would have happened otherwise, with BSidesLV participants. I Am The Cavalry has been at its best shining a light on dark parts of the map. This work takes deep knowledge, persistence, and ambassadorship. Along with our industry and public policy teammates, we have nudged and catalyzed transformational changes, as opposed to incremental ones. To catalyze action toward transformational change, the I Am The Cavalry track will curate talks that identify and develop “shovel-ready” projects to empower our volunteers toward measurable or observable outcomes. For instance,- Create tools to increase awareness and understanding of I Am The Cavalry, including transformational outcomes, resources, and individuals. Develop capabilities for ambassadorship and translation among the hacker community. Promote new projects that have leadership, structure, and momentum. Feature calls to action for “shovel-ready” projects or tasks – typically those that only need scale or distribution.

Open PasswordsCon

Focused on the (in)security of passwords and other authentication solutions, bringing together security researchers, password crackers, and experts in password security from around the globe in order to better understand and address the challenges surrounding digital authentication. This track explores all facets of authentication security, from analysis and education to creating, securing, cracking, and exploiting authentication solutions.

Open Proving Ground

The BSidesLV Proving Ground program exists in order to give first-time speakers the opportunity to work with a seasoned industry professional to improve their public speaking skills, with the end goal of presenting their research on a global stage at BSidesLV. All accepted speakers spend 4 months working with an experienced mentor who will assist them with everything from talking points to slide layout, design, and delivery prior to giving their talk in Las Vegas. https://bsideslv.org/proving-ground

Open Proving Ground Mentors

If you’re an experienced speaker here's your chance to help the next generation of presenters. Being a Proving Ground mentor lets you: * Give back to the community * Make friends and build your network * Get a fresh perspective on current research and emerging threats

Open Skytalks

Skytalks' mission is to provide a platform for researchers to share their research, for angry hackers to rant about the issues of their industry, and for curious souls to probe interesting issues, all without the watchful eye of the rest of the world. With a strict, well-enforced “no recording” policy, research that is underway or critical of a vendor can be aired to your peers. You are talking to other people in the information and computer underground, and very few topics are taboo. We invite the best of BSides: the best of the underground, in all its forms. Esoterica is as welcome as 0-day here, and history, design, APTs (or as we used to call them, hackers who are better funded than you), and extruded intruders have all found a place on our stage. https://skytalks.info/

Open Training Ground

This track consists of workshops and classes to give your students hands-on experience learning the latest and greatest tools, tactics, techniques, and processes. We accept proposals for 1/2 day, full-day, and 2-day workshops. https://bsideslv.org/training-ground