Adversary Village is a community initiative focused on adversary simulation, emulation, offensive cyber security, purple teaming, and adversary tradecraft. The village explores how real adversaries operate, how offensive capabilities are built and deployed, and how nation state sponsored threat actors continue to shape the modern cyber threat landscape.

Our focus spans adversary and APT simulation, ransomware and breach emulation, adversarial attack simulation, supply chain security, adversary intelligence, research on nation state threat actors, hacker survival skills and the broader adversarial mindset. If it involves thinking and operating like an adversary, pull up a chair, that's a conversation we want to have.

The goal of Adversary Village is to build an open and collaborative security community where researchers, practitioners, and organizations can come together to develop and share new approaches to adversary simulation and emulation. Understanding how adversaries think and operate is essential to building stronger defenses.

At the village, the community will experience deep technical workshops, live demonstrations, panel discussions, adversary emulation labs, breach simulation exercises, CTFs, and other hands on activities. Everything is designed to give participants practical exposure to adversarial operations while encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing across the security community.

We’re bringing AI Village back to focus on what actually matters: practical, no-bullshit AI security. LLMs are an amazing technology, but they’re not magic. We are stripping away the industry hype and focusing on hands-on skills, whether you are building your first exploit or leading an AI red team.

Here is what you can expect this year:

Drop-In Workshops: Walk up, grab a seat, and learn. We have drop in hands on mini-workshops on a bunch of topics. These include basic AI topics like how LLMs actually work, and how to build agents from scratch. For red teamers we have ones ranging from prompt injection to manipulating malware detection models. This is all running locally on a cluster we’re bringing to DEF CON.

HalCTF: Our main competition this year will teach you how to write and fine-tune your own pentesting agent using open-source models. To handle the massive compute load, we're safely detonating these agents on GCP, giving each participant a dedicated GPU for their models.

Other Agent Shenanigans: The field moves fast and there’s going to be something new by defcon. We’re bringing a lot of compute to host things and we’ll have some surprises in the space.

Whether you want to hear top-tier research from the people actually breaking these models or you just want to sit down and write an autonomous pentesting agent, we have the hardware and the labs ready for you.

The AppSec Village is a 100% volunteer-run creator space at DEF CON where hackers learn how modern software gets broken and how to make it harder to break. Expect attacker-minded talks and live demos, plus hands-on workshops and Practical On-Demand sessions where you can practice techniques with the community, from finding and exploiting vulnerabilities to fixing them correctly. You can also explore the village Arsenal for rapid demos of open-source AppSec tools, and compete in the Fix the Flag wargame, a CTF-style contest that rewards you for remediating vulnerabilities and hardening an app before turning to offense. If software is your target or your craft, you will leave with practical skills, tools, and mental models you can use immediately.

Prerequisites

For talks, panels, and tool demos, there are no prerequisites, and no special equipment is needed. For hands-on activities (workshops, some Practical On-Demand sessions, and the Fix the Flag wargame), bringing a laptop is strongly recommended so you can follow along and run tools. No specialized hardware is required, and any session-specific setup notes will be provided by the activity owner ahead of time.

The aviation and space industries, security researchers, and the public share a common goal: safe, reliable, and trustworthy aviation and space operations. For too long, negative perceptions and fractured trust on all sides have held back collaboration between the aviation, space, and security researcher communities that has advanced safety, reliability, and security of other industries. As the traditional domains of aviation safety and cybersecurity increasingly overlap, more effective collaboration between stakeholders ensures we will be safer, sooner, together. Through the Aerospace Village, the security research community invites industry leaders, researchers and academia interested in aviation and space security, safety, and resilience to attend, understand, collaborate together to achieve our common goals. Empathy and understanding build common ground, while acts and words likely to increase division between these two communities undermine these efforts. The Aerospace Village welcomes those who seek to improve aviation and space security, safety, and resilience through positive, productive collaboration among all ecosystem stakeholders.

Our Goal

The Aerospace Village is a volunteer team of hackers, pilots, and policy advisors who come from the public and private sectors. We believe the flying public deserves safe, reliable, and trustworthy air travel which is highly dependent on secure aviation and space operations.

Welcome to the Bug Bounty Village at DEF CON, the central hub for the global community of bug bounty hunters, security researchers, and hackers. Now in our third year, we are returning to DEF CON bigger and better than ever.

Hacking is at the core of everything we do. Whether you are a newcomer looking to submit your first report or a seasoned veteran chasing critical exploits, our space offers the tools, community support, and technical insights you need to level up. Attendees can expect a high-energy environment filled with technical talks, hands-on workshops, and live hacking challenges. Following the massive success of our inaugural CTF in 2025—which drew over 750 participants—we are expanding our competitive offerings to push your skills to the limit.

Visit us and participate in our custom electronic badges giveaways, get an exclusive challenge coin, and engage with some of the world's most prolific bug bounty hunters. You will learn everything from the ""obvious"" essentials—like setting up a secure testing environment—to cutting-edge techniques for breaking complex modern systems. If you want to see how the world’s most impactful bugs are found, fixed, and rewarded, this is the place to be.

Prerequisites:

To fully participate in any of the workshops, trainings, and / or CTF, attendees should bring a laptop and a charger. For the safety of your hardware and personal data, it is a prerequisite that all participants have their laptops configured for the DEF CON Wi-Fi in a secure manner prior to joining village activities.

While the village offers content for all experience levels, a foundational understanding of web protocols and a curious, analytical mindset will help you get the most out of our hands-on challenges. Those interested in the CTF may want to brush up on common web vulnerability classes and basic scripting to hit the ground running.

Biohacking Village (BHV) is DEF CON’s hands-on home for hacking the systems that keep humans alive. We bring a hacker lens to healthcare, medical devices, and the messy reality where firmware, networks, clinical workflows, and cybersecurity collide. If you like breaking things to understand them - BHV is your stop.

At BHV, attendees don’t just watch talks. They do the work: crack open artifacts, follow packets, unravel bad assumptions, and learn how vulnerabilities show up in real clinical contexts. Our creator space is built like a lab-meets-playground: part training ground, part CTF arena, part community hub- where beginners get a friendly on-ramp and experienced researchers get puzzles that bite back.

Healthcare is critical infrastructure, and medical devices are computers with unique constraints: safety requirements, legacy environments, weird protocols, long lifecycles, and a threat surface that spans from embedded firmware to cloud dashboards to the humans using them. BHV translates that complexity into hacker-accessible challenges, with clear rules-of-engagement and responsible research guardrails.

The Biohacking Village:
- Treats healthcare tech as a systems hacking problem, not a niche specialty - Turns real-world failure modes into repeatable labs and CTF challenges - Brings together hackers, engineers, clinicians, and policy folks for cross-pollination you don’t get anywhere else - Teaches not only “how to break it,” but also how to document, disclose, and improve it

Who BHV is for:
- Beginners who want a welcoming first step into hardware/firmware, medical tech, and embedded research - Experienced hackers who want high-signal challenges and healthcare-specific nuance - Builders and defenders who want to understand the attacker mindset without compromising safety

Come by Biohacking Village if you want to learn real skills, meet a community that’s equal parts brilliant and helpful, and explore one of the most consequential targets in security: healthcare.

Prerequisites

• A laptop (Windows/Mac/Linux) that can run a VM or containers
• USB-A/USB-C adapters (because the dongle life chose us)
• Basic comfort with 'terminal stuff' helps, but we’ll have ramps for beginners
• Hacking Tools

The Blacks In Cybersecurity (B.I.C.) Village seeks to bring culturally diverse perspectives to the holistic Cybersecurity community; by way of a series of talks and a capture the flag event. In providing these activities, we hope to help highlight Black experiences, innovations in the field, Black culture and educate the community about Black history.

In doing this, we believe that we can better educate and normalize the discussion of deficiency or prejudices in Cybersecurity education/development for minority communities. We also believe this effort can be translated to aid in eradication of these issues in the Cybersecurity and Hacker/Maker community and allow for more diverse hobbyists and professionals to engage and contribute.

Prerequisites

Laptop, Tablet

You asked for it and we're back again! The Badgelife Village (formerly Community) is a proper home for all things Badgelife on the con floor! Visit us to experience the Badgelife Museum, featuring hundreds of current and past community-made badges, SAO's, MiniBadges and more! Donate your own badges and SAOs you've made or collected to the museum, and see them come back to con year after year.. or bring what you've got to trade with the community via our ""take-one, leave-one"" SAO Trading Wall! Attend our in-person Badge Trading meetups to swap badges you've already enjoyed for new creations!

If you're interested in creating Badges or SAOs yourself, we will have lots of interesting badge creators around showing off their work and giving training in the form of talks and workshops on their methodologies. Come learn from the best and meet your favorite creators at our various Badgemaker Meetups! Before and after con, visit our village at https://badge.life, where we're kicking off our online Badge Archive. Closer to con we'll post our schedule for any con workshops, talks or activities on the site as well, so check there for our meetup times and events. Hope to see you at the village!

Welcome to the other side of the hacking mirror. Blue Team Village (BTV) is both a place and a community built for and by people who defend computer systems, networks, and people against cyber attacks. It's a place to gather, talk, share, and learn from each other about the latest tools, technologies, and tactics that our community can use to detect attackers and prevent them from achieving their goals.

Security teams have spent years hardening web-apps, email-gateways, and network-perimeters. Meanwhile, the phone line sitting on every receptionist's desk remains almost completely unmonitored. Nobody's deploying a firewall between a caller and the person who picks up. Caller ID authentication has made some progress, but the conversation itself? Wide open.

And now that AI-generated voices can pass for the real thing and automated agents are handling account resets and payment processing, that gap is getting a lot more interesting.Call Center Village is where voice security, conversational AI, and social engineering collide — across both voice and text channels.

Sit down at a workstation and synthesize a copy of your own voice with open-source tools running on a local GPU, or let our staff walk you through the process. Dig into voice pipelines, deepfake audio detection, and the arms race between the two. Wire up a working conversational AI agent — stitching together the real-time audio infrastructure, transcription, language model, and speech synthesis that make these systems speak.

On the text side, go after chatbot agents tasked with handling simulated customer interactions. Find the cracks in their system prompts, hijack conversation logic, and convince them to do things their developers never intended. Once you're ready, muster all your skills to take on our Escalation Desk CTF, the official Call Center Village contest at DEF CON 34.

We've also got a collection of vintage telephones, prank extensions, chatty AI-agents, and a British-style telephone booth worth stopping by for.

No prior experience required. If you know how to make a phone call or type a message, you're already qualified. Equipment is provided, including laptops and ANC headsets - but you're more than welcome to bring your own devices.

They told us blockchains were immutable, trustless, autonomous. Like a fortress of math and consensus. But every protocol hides a human fingerprint where math has edge cases, and consensus can be forked.

At the Cryptocurrency Village, we don’t just read the whitepaper — we set it on fire. You’ll discover how financial technology really works: by breaking it. Learn the unique ways cryptocurrency systems are attacked, defended, and secured. Whether you are looking to audit smart contracts, track illicit funds across chains, or analyze the cryptographic primitives powering decentralized networks, the Cryptocurrency Village offers a deep dive into the unique intersection of economics, math, and offensive security.

Win prizes in the Cryptocurrency Challenge, colocated within the village walls. Workshops and competitions provide a safe workspace and give the experience of mentored participation in a well‑equipped and comfortable environment. Visit the hackathon floor to witness teams building strange new financial tools, breaking assumptions, and pushing hardware and software beyond their intended limits.

From curious newcomers asking their first questions to seasoned cryptohackers hunting new exploits and allies, the Cryptocurrency Village is a meeting point for those drawn to the intersection of money, code, cryptography, and rebellion. It is a place to interrogate the financial systems that increasingly govern freedom, privacy, ownership, and trust itself. Get inspired to explore cryptocurrency where practical finance hacking for the public good is encouraged — even while wearing the red team jersey.

We inclusively welcome all cryptocurrency projects and their cousins across adjacent cryptographic and decentralized technology communities. Come hack with us. The testnet vault is waiting, and we’ve already left the door unlocked!

The Car Hacking Village is the primary hub for the global community dedicated to securing over a billion vehicles. For DEF CON 34, we move beyond theory and put you directly into the driver’s seat of modern exploitation. This year’s experience is built around raw, hands-on access to live vehicle architectures and hardware benches. Whether you’re intercepting CAN bus traffic in real-time or probing wireless entry points, you’ll be working with the same systems used by top researchers. We’ve curated a high-intensity environment where you can tear down ECUs, bypass security gateways, and collaborate to dismantle the latest threats facing the industry.

Prerequisites

To participate effectively in the Car Hacking Village at DEF CON 34, attendees should bring a laptop with multiple USB ports (or appropriate adapters) and a functional Linux environment. We do not provide specialized tools on-site, so you'll need to bring your own—such as a USB-to-CAN adapter (e.g., Canable, ValueCAN), a SDR (e.g., RTL-SDR, HackRF), or a multimeter—is encouraged for independent exploration.

Knowledge of the Linux command line and basic Python is highly recommended. For those looking to hit the ground running, we suggest brushing up on CAN bus fundamentals and basic reverse engineering of binary data. Familiarity with tools like wireshark and can-utils will allow you to dive straight into the live vehicle architectures.

Cloud Village is an open space to meet folks interested in offensive and defensive aspects of cloud security. The village helps security professionals understand evolving threats, implement best practices and defend against real-world cloud vulnerabilities via Talks, Labs, Panels and a continuous two-day Cloud Security focussed CTF.

Our CTF will be a jeopardy-style, two-day competition (Friday and Saturday) focused on real-world cloud security. Participants will tackle challenges centered around securing, exploiting, and analyzing cloud environments across major platforms including AWS, GCP, and Azure. The contest will feature scenarios involving IAM misconfigurations, container and Kubernetes security, cloud reconnaissance, infrastructure exploitation, logging and detection, serverless security, secrets management, and cloud-native attack paths. Teams will test their skills across offensive and defensive cloud security domains while competing for prizes awarded to the top 3 teams.

Prerequisites

• Come with an open mind and zeal to learn as a group.
• For Labs and CTF, please bring a laptop with admin right and unfiltered internet access.

Launched in 2014, Crypto & Privacy Village (CPV) is a community-run village centred on privacy and cryptography that aims to educate and inform the general public, students, educators, hackers, security and privacy professionals, and policymakers. We provide a unique hybrid space that features talks; chill space for relaxing with friends, doing CTFs, and cross industry networking; the Gold Bug Challenge and desk for hints and support; privacy-related art installations; and an information desk for questions about privacy and cryptography. Come talk with us about facial recognition technology, privacy enhancing clothing, or crypto backdoor laws!

Prerequisites

We will provide make up but it would be better for attendees to bring their own if possible (to see how effective they are); laptops and notebooks for the Gold Bug and other activities (we will provide paper)

The Data Duplication Village has all the updated bits and bytes available from infocon.org packed up into nice, neat packages.  If you're looking for a copy of just about any security con talk known to hacker-kind, a copy of the VX-Underground archive, hash tables or those elusive rainbow tables, you'll find them here. Our village provides a "free-to-you" service of providing you with direct access to terabytes of useful data to help build those hacking skills and allow open discussions with others.

We also encourage DC Next Gen participation to ensure that our future generations have the opportunity to explore the details of how past and current data storage works!

Embedded Systems Village (ESV) is a community of enthusiastic hackers who love working with hardware. Run by Hacking Villages Inc., a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit, ESV's mission is to educate attendees on how embedded systems work, how to analyze their hardware components, how to identify vulnerabilities, and how to prevent cyberattacks on these systems.

Everything ESV does is grounded in real embedded devices — occasionally jamming a whole bunch of concepts onto a single piece of hardware, but always with an authentic real-world analog. Whether you're walking in for the first time or you've been hacking hardware for years, ESV provides a challenging yet supportive environment to hack, learn, and innovate.

Prerequisites:

• Attendees wishing to compete in the competition should bring a laptop, and any tools that might reasonably required for hacking embedded devices.

A community dedicated to game security. Come play with hands-on reversing, modding, exploring, and exploiting games across various platforms. Our goal is to make game security accessible, learnable and playable for all skill levels. Game security is an exciting way to understand modern security concerns in a fun and interactive way.

Prerequisites

Some content may require a laptop. Certain talks and workshops may have some base knowledge required, but we also offer game hacking 101 material as well to get started with no prior knowledge.

Every day our lives become more connected to consumer hardware. Every day the approved uses of that hardware are reduced, while the real capabilities expand. Come discover hardware hacking tricks and tips regain some of that capacity, and make your own use for things! We have interactive demos to help you learn new skills. We have challenges to compete against fellow attendees. We have some tools to help with your fever dream modifications. Come share what you know and learn something new.

Prerequisites:

Tools are all provided. Bringing your own setup if you have one will allow users to use a path they are familiar with.

The Ham Radio Village (HRV) is your home base for all things amateur radio; whether you’ve never touched a radio or you’re already licensed and looking to branch out. From getting licensed and making your first transmission, to hacking and modifying radio/antenna hardware, to prowling on the hunt for radio ‘foxes’, there’s something here for every level of curiosity. Attendees will walk away with hands-on radio frequency (RF) knowledge immediately applicable to other DEF CON contests, talks, and village demos. Interacting with licensed hams and other wireless enthusiasts will discover how ham radio knowledge transfers directly to RFID hacking, WiFi, and other wireless security work.

Have questions about ham radio? Come ask them. HRV is an open space for anyone curious about amateur radio; from first-timers to seasoned operators. Presented talks, contests, and volunteer tables cover everything from different modes of communication (voice, digital, Morse code) to the nuts and bolts of antenna design and signal propagation. Topics that typically carry a high barrier to entry become a lot more approachable when you can just walk up and ask someone.

When it's time to go home, participants take with them a foundation with applications well beyond the conference; including

• Understanding the base concepts of amateur radio, including how to use it as part of their day to day life, both for regular talking as well as building community
• Connect with like minded folks year round who have a vested interest in the hobby
• Find out how to Legally transmit with 1500w of power, more than what you use to heat your hot pocket!
• Learn how the radio hobby and radiosport can improve your hacking skills, because AX25 is quite easy to understand when building a basic network
• Provide for the future of the hobby, where you can learn, as well as teach others, enhancing the hacker community

ICS Village is a non-profit organization with the purpose of providing education and awareness of Industrial Control System security.

Interactive simulated ICS environments, such as Hack the Plan(e)t and Howdy Neighbor, provide safe yet realistic examples to preserve safe, secure, and reliable operations. We bring real components such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), Human Machine Interfaces (HMI), Remote Telemetry Units (RTU), and actuators, to simulate a realistic environment throughout different industrial sectors. Visitors can connect their laptops to assess these ICS devices with common security scanners, network sniffers to sniff the industrial traffic, and more!

Prerequisites

Laptops, no other required hardware. ICS Fundamentals is recomended.

Hack all the things at IoT Village!

IoT Village advocates for advancing security in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry through bringing researchers and industry together. IoT Village hosts talks by expert security researchers, interactive hacking labs, live bug hunting in the latest IoT tech, and competitive IoT hacking contests. Over the years IoT Village has served as a platform to showcase and uncover hundreds of new vulnerabilities, giving attendees the opportunity to learn about the most innovative techniques to both hack and secure IoT. IoT Village is organized by security consulting and research firm, Independent Security Evaluators (ISE).

Prerequisites

IoT Village welcomes individuals of all skill levels. A base knowledge of HTML is a nice to have, but we offer activities for everyone. Bringing your own laptop could help in beating around long lines for terminals for hands-on labs.

Want to tinker with locks and tools the likes of which you've only seen in movies featuring secret agents, daring heists, or covert entry teams?

Then come on by the Lockpick Village, run by The Open Organization Of Lockpickers (TOOOL), where you will have the opportunity to learn hands-on how the fundamental hardware of physical security operates and how it can be compromised.

The Lockpick Village is a physical security demonstration and participation area. Visitors can learn about the vulnerabilities of various locking devices, techniques used to exploit these vulnerabilities, and practice on locks of various levels of difficultly to try it themselves.

Experts will be on hand to demonstrate and plenty of trial locks, pick tools, and other devices will be available for you to handle. By exploring the faults and flaws in many popular lock designs, you can not only learn about the fun hobby of sport-picking, but also gain a much stronger knowledge about the best methods and practices for protecting your own property.

The Maritime Hacking Village (MHV) has set sail for Las Vegas to deliver the next evolution of our immersive maritime hacking experience for the participants of DEF CON 34 to learn what it takes to exploit and defend real-world maritime systems. Our mission is simple: we are creating a space for hackers, stakeholders, and policy makers to come together and navigate the changing tides in the maritime sector’s technological, geopolitical, and adversarial landscapes which demand ever-more-urgent collective action to address the systemic cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the systems which underpin global maritime defense and trade.

Maritime infrastructure is the undeniable backbone of our global economy and society as we know it. It is central to the supply chains for nearly all critical infrastructure -- and still, stakeholders unanimously agree that maritime systems (ships, ports, and maritime communication infrastructure) are some of the most digitally vulnerable, and that the sector has systemically under-invested in developing the policy, tools, and workforce necessary to change this. Evidently these are issues that require engagement with the security community to solve – but seemingly insurmountable access barriers prevent the security community, and anyone else, from doing anything to help – and so, as we see it, these access barriers have become the primary issue which stands in the way of progress.

MHV has made it our purpose to eliminate these barriers, and provide every human with the access and resources necessary to engage in maritime vulnerability research and cybersecurity innovation. Together we hack to facilitate the discovery and sharing of knowledge integral to the development of effective maritime cybersecurity policy, industry standards and regulations, vulnerability information sharing, cyber threat intelligence, and most importantly – a capable and trusted workforce. Our village is a safe, shared space where the security community (elite hackers, trusted providers, and young talent alike) can develop and demonstrate their competence in attacking and defending real maritime systems – and where maritime industry stakeholders can engage with this community to find trustworthy security professionals to help their cause, to discover tools and techniques to protect their systems, and to access a talent pipeline to feed their next-generation workforce. We believe that this work together will create rising tides of awareness, information sharing, and innovation that will lift all ships and allow us to gradually secure the maritime sector.

Prerequisites

Ideally, participants will be familiar with using a terminal, the screen utility, basic /dev/tty devices, and wireshark. Beyond this, there are no hard prerequisites, but participating individuals and teams are encouraged to bring experience in the following areas to accelerate successful engagement in our more advanced hacking challenges:

• CAN-based protocols, ex. CAN bus, J1939, NMEA2000. Familiarity using can-utils
• Serial protocols, ex. Modbus (RS485 and tcp), NMEA0183 (RS422), and RS232
• SDR/software defined radio - basic usage of gnuradio with HackRF or more advanced radio
• Firmware/binary analysis and reverse engineering
• Attacking WiFi (802.11) networks
• Understanding of common radio frequency modulation schemes
• Familiarity with LoRA and 802-based mesh networking

The Makers Village is an artistic, hands-on creative lab where DEF CON attendees can explore modern making as a form of hacking through design, experimentation, and fabrication. This space introduces participants to the tools and processes used in today’s maker movement — including 3D printing, digital design software, textile machines, laser etchers and cutting tools, two-part epoxy and resin work, and other creative fabrication techniques. Attendees can expect to learn how ideas move from concept to physical object while experimenting with materials, machines, and workflows in a supportive environment.

Prerequisites

Makers of all experiences welcome. Learners under 18 need their responsible adult... or as responsible as DEF CON gets.

Malware Village is dedicated to providing a safe and engaging environment for participants to learn and share knowledge about malware analysis. Our mission is to equip attendees with the skills, techniques, and historical context needed to understand, research, and combat malware. Participants will gain hands-on experience with real-world analysis techniques, guided by seasoned infosec professionals.

Village participants will have opportunities to immerse themselves in various aspects of malware-analysis under the guidance of (and supported by) experienced infosec professionals. Malware Village also provides participants opportunities to connect and network with infosec professionals and malware-analysis enthusiasts.

Beyond technical training, Malware Village fosters a strong community where researchers, enthusiasts, and professionals can connect. We welcome everyone—whether you're an artist creating malware-inspired art, a hardware researcher discovering unexpected connections to malware analysis, or a seasoned analyst reminiscing about early malware history.

Prerequisites

• For talks, there is no requirement just come and learn
• For workshops, an attendee will likely need the use of a laptop

Come to the Payment Village to learn about payment technologies! Payments play a crucial role in our daily lives, yet many of us lack an understanding of how they work. Our mission is to educate and cultivate the next generation of payment security experts and to foster open discussions around payments. We want to raise the bar in payment security! We invite you to explore the history of payments and to learn how modern-day payments work.

The village is jam-packed with hands-on experiences and exciting challenges! Unsure of where to start? Register for one of our workshops to acquire new skills or attend a talk by one of our carefully chosen experts. Already a pro? Pick up a Payment Village credit card to take part in our contest! Looking for unique challenges? Take home all the money from our cash-grab machine or have a go at our scavenger hunt!

The Packet Hacking Village at DEF CON provides a community learning experience for people of all skill levels, from absolute beginners to seasoned professionals. While DEF CON is made up of dozens of small community-of-interest villages, we are one of the largest and most well known. We host practical training, network forensics and analysis games, and the renowned Capture The Packet event, which has been a Black Badge contest over 10 times and draws world-class hackers from around the world. Our mission has always been simple: to teach people good internet safety practices, and to provide an atmosphere that encourages everyone to explore and learn.

We provide a welcoming environment for hackers of all skill levels and backgrounds to network, learn new things, and be active participants in DEF CON. Our famous “Wall of Sheep” provides a fun and interactive take on internet security and privacy, while our contests Packet Inspector, Packet Detective, and Capture The Packet serve as a zero-to-hero pathway for individuals to learn network security, packet analysis, and delve into advanced security topics. Every year we strive to bring something new and innovative to DEF CON, whether it’s never-seen-before talks or creative games to teach and test skills.

Depending on what talks, contests, and events participants select, they can expect to learn any/all of the following: Basic Internet security and privacy, network cable construction, honeypot setup and operation, regex, Linux training, packet interception and decoding, network analysis, sniffing, and forensics, reverse engineering, file forensics, system forensics, cryptography analysis, and more to be determined by the talks and workshops that we accept.

The Packet Hacking Village and Wall of Sheep have been a part of DEF CON since DEF CON 9, and we are proud to provide education and training to the hacker community at no cost.

DEF CON welcomes policymakers and technology professionals to join Policy@DEF CON and participate with our community of knowledgeable experts. We need to work together.

Over the past 30 years the DEF CON community, has evolved and grown along with the cyber domain. We understand that creating a safer digital society requires collaboration between security and policy experts. DEF CON provides a space for representatives of all areas of security to come together to educate and engage each other.

Tech policy is being written as we speak and we believe including diverse expert voices will improve outcomes across the policy-technology spectrum by bridging the gap between technical and policy practitioners. Senior government officials, policy experts, nonprofit and the private sector, security researchers, hackers, academics and technologists from around the world all come together at Policy @ DEF CON.

The Physical Security Village explores the world of hardware bypasses and techniques generally outside of the realm of cyber-security and lockpicking. Come learn some of these bypasses, how to fix them, and have the opportunity to try them out for yourself. We’ll be covering the basics, like the under-the-door-tool and latch slipping attacks, as well as an in depth look at more complicated bypasses. Learn about elevator hacking, attacking alarm systems at the sensor and communication line, and cut-away and display models of common hardware to show how it works on the inside!

We are excited to bring you the 5th Edition of Quantum Village @ Def Con! Last year was a blast and our open source hardware sparked a revolution in quantum tech, and we have only just begun! QV provides vital resources and spaces for the hacker community to have access to quantum hardware and start designing the next generation of quantum technologies on their own terms.

This year we are bringing even more Open Quantum Hardware to Vegas, and we want you to come and be part of this seismic shift in how we innovate and adopt these exciting new technologies and ideas. You wanted more quantum, and quantum needs your Hacker Ingenuity!

With most of quantum tech being the preserve of academics and venture capitalists, we believe the Quantum Village is a vital space that hackers of all capabilities can benefit from and deserve. Let’s build stuff from the Atom Up!

Recon Village is an Open Space with Talks, Live Demos, Workshops, Discussions, Beginner Sessions, and CTFs, all centered around one theme: Reconnaissance.

Here, you explore recon and OSINT as practical disciplines across security research, investigation, journalism, and intelligence. You will learn how to map infrastructure, trace digital footprints, analyze open data, pivot across sources, and understand how systems, people, and signals connect across internet, cloud, AI, and the physical world.

Expect GeOSINT, live recon, do your own recon sessions, recon dashboards, and practitioner-led talks that go deep into real tradecraft.

You will not just listen. You will investigate, enumerate, validate, and think. If you want to see what is exposed before others do, and turn scattered signals into actionable insight, this is your space.

Prerequisites

Not a lot is needed to participate in Recon Village.

If you plan to participate seriously in contests such as CTFs, live recon, or GeOSINT challenges, a laptop is strongly recommended so you can enumerate, pivot, and document findings in real time. For lighter participation, a smartphone with internet access is sufficient.

There will be content and activities for all levels, from beginners exploring fundamentals to experienced practitioners diving into deeper investigations.

Good to Have - asic familiarity with domains, IP addresses, DNS, and search operators is helpful. Prior experience with command line tools or recon and OSINT frameworks is a plus, but not required.

Required mindset: curiosity, patience, and the instinct to follow the signal.

After 20 years of evolution, from the WiFi Village, to the Wireless Village, RF Hackers Sanctuary presents: The Radio Frequency Village at DEF CON 34. The Radio Frequency Village is an environment where people come to learn about the security of radio frequency (RF) transmissions, which includes wireless technology, applications of software defined radio (SDR), Bluetooth (BT), Zigbee, WiFi, Z-wave, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Infrared (IR) and other protocols within the usable RF spectrum. As a security community we have grown beyond WiFi, and even beyond Bluetooth and Zigbee. The RF Village includes talks on all manner of radio frequency command and control as well as communication systems. While everyone knows about the WiFi and Bluetooth attack surfaces, most of us rely on many additional technologies every day. RF Hackers Sanctuary is supported by a group of experts in the area of information security as it relates to RF technologies. RF Hackers Sanctuary’s common purpose is to provide an environment in which participants may explore these technologies with a focus on improving their skills through offense and defense. These learning environments are provided in the form of guest speakers, panels, and Radio Frequency Capture the Flag games, to promote learning on cutting edge topics as it relates to radio communications. We promise to still provide free WiFi.

Co-located with the RF Village is the RF Capture the Flag. Come for the talks, stay for the practice and the competition.

The Red Team Village is focused on training the art of critical thinking, collaboration, and strategy in offensive security. The RTV brings together information security professionals to share new tactics and techniques in offensive security. Attendees may spend time engaged in workshops or challenge themselves in an immersive Capture the Flag competition to put their newly obtained skills to the test.

Prerequisites

Laptops are highly encouraged for participation in Red Team Village tactics and workshops, and are mandatory for CTF and Wargames.

Learn the art of Scambaiting. Speak with experts in our community to get an introduction to the skills needed to better understand common scams & fraud. Explore ethical OSINT used to track criminal infrastructure and learn the Social Engineering tactics required for disrupting call center operations. We’ll cover the foundations of identifying victims, reporting to authorities, and safely navigating the world of counter-fraud. Stop hanging up and start learning how to hit back.

Prerequisites

• Laptop or phone with internet connection to join sessions with live scam bait calls to listen or join in.

The Social Engineering Community village dives into one of the most powerful attack surfaces in security: humans. Our village creates a space where attendees can explore the psychology, tactics, and tradecraft behind human-focused hacking. Through presentations, live demonstrations (via contests), and interactive activities, students, defenders, hackers, and the curious can see how reconnaissance, persuasion, and improvisation are used to bypass even the best defenses.

At DEF CON the village becomes a live stage for the craft. In the Social Engineering Community Vishing Competition (SECVC), competitors step into a soundproof booth and place real calls using OSINT, creative pretexts, and quick thinking while the audience watches the strategy unfold in real time. In Battle of the Bots, human-created AI agents attempt social engineering calls of their own, exploring what happens when automated systems try their hand at elicitation. Alongside the contests, attendees can have the opportunity to place calls in our "Cold Calls" or listen in to some presentations.

The village is built by the community that practices the craft. Volunteers, researchers, hackers, defenders, and curious newcomers all contribute to the content each year, creating space for new voices and ideas to take the stage. Whether you want to watch live un-scripted social engineering calls, understand the psychology behind it, or meet others who love the human side of security, the Social Engineering Community village is the place to experience it at DEF CON.

Prerequisites

Attendees are welcome to watch contests, join discussions, and participate in interactive activities with no preparation needed.

Competitors in the Social Engineering Community Vishing Competition and Battle of the Bots Contest are selected in advance through a Call for Competitors prior to DEF CON, but some activities such as Cold Calls allow audience members to sign up onsite and participate.

Attendees who want to participate in Cold Calls may benefit from brushing up on basic social engineering skills such as rapport building, influence and elicitation techniques.

The Telecom Security Village focuses on the intersection of telecommunications infrastructure, security operations, and advanced threat research. As telecom networks form the backbone of global communication, they have become a high-value target for Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), nation-state actors, and sophisticated cybercriminal groups. This village explores how modern telecom environments—including 4G/5G core networks, signaling systems, IMS infrastructure, and routing protocols such as BGP—are monitored, defended, and analyzed within a telecom Security Operations Center (SOC).

Attendees will learn how telecom SOC teams detect and investigate threats targeting mobile networks, signaling systems, and subscriber infrastructure. The village will demonstrate techniques used to identify signaling abuse, network manipulation, SIM and identity attacks, and telecom-specific intrusion patterns that are often leveraged by APT groups for surveillance, interception, and disruption.

Through talks, live demonstrations, and research discussions, participants will gain insight into telecom threat intelligence, network telemetry analysis, anomaly detection in signaling networks, and defensive strategies used by operators and researchers to protect critical communications infrastructure. The goal of the Telecom Security Village is to bridge the gap between the telecom engineering community and the cybersecurity research ecosystem while promoting deeper understanding of threats targeting global telecom networks.

Prerequisites

Participants do not need prior telecom experience to attend the Telecom Security Village, but a basic understanding of networking concepts will be helpful. Familiarity with IP networking, TCP/IP protocols, and general cybersecurity concepts will allow attendees to gain more value from the hands-on demonstrations and discussions.

For technical workshops and labs, participants are encouraged to have some exposure to Linux environments, packet analysis tools such as Wireshark, and basic scripting or programming knowledge (e.g., Python). Attendees interested in deeper exploration may benefit from familiarity with mobile network concepts such as LTE/5G architecture, SIP/IMS signaling, or routing protocols like BGP, though these are not strict requirements.

The village is designed to accommodate a broad audience including security researchers, telecom engineers, network operators, students, and hackers who are interested in understanding telecom infrastructure and its security challenges. Introductory explanations will be provided so that newcomers can follow along while more advanced participants can engage with deeper technical content.

"Tamper-evident" refers to a physical security technology that provides evidence of tampering (access, damage, repair, or replacement) to determine authenticity or integrity of a container or object(s). In practical terms, this can be a piece of tape that closes an envelope, a plastic detainer that secures a hasp, or an ink used to identify a legitimate document. Tamper-evident technologies are often confused with "tamper resistant" or "tamper proof" technologies which attempt to prevent tampering in the first place. Referred to individually as ""seals,"" many tamper technologies are easy to destroy, but a destroyed (or missing) seal would provide evidence of tampering! The goal of the TEV is to teach attendees how these technologies work and how many can be tampered with without leaving evidence.

The Tamper-Evident Village includes the following contests and events:

• **The Box (Bomb Defusal Contest)** - The Box is an electronic tamper-evident challenge in which you have 10 minutes to defuse a bomb. Learn about electronic sensors, traps, and other crafty tricks while solving puzzles to figure out how to defuse the bomb. One mistake lets The Box know you're doing something you shouldn't and BOOM, you're dead. Make every second count! Don't worry - you can respawn at the back of the line.
• ** Tamper-Evident Contest: King of the Hill** - Compete against your fellow DEF CON attendees identifying and exploiting tamper-evident seal defeats! Work with several mechanical tamper seals to figure out how they can be defeated and fool the would-be seal inspectors. Score is based on how hard it is for inspectors to identify tampering and how much time it took. Beat the current best and claim your spot as King of the Hill!
• **Counterfeit Badge Contest** - Submit your best forgery of a DEF CON human badge. Other (non DEF CON) target badges are also available for those looking for more counterfeit challenges and fun! Please play responsibly and do not use counterfeit badges for untoward purposes at con.

Voting Village at DEF CON, launched in 2017, is the first public forum where hackers and members of the public have legal, unconstrained, hands-on experience with actual election systems used in the United States and elsewhere. It has become the premier venue for exploring the theory and practice of election security. This unique voting laboratory helps participants – in person and around the world – understand where gaps in security are, how to mitigate vulnerabilities, and why hackers are such an important part of investigating election security. Most importantly, the Voting Village helps election officials at all levels understand how to make systems more secure and more trustworthy.

The Voting Village returns for its 10th year at DEF CON 34. As in the past, the Voting Village will feature a 2-day speaking track (Friday and Saturday) that will highlight various aspects of election cybersecurity, including the technical components that make up our election infrastructure: hardware, software, and databases, new vulnerabilities, and ways to mitigate them.