Welcome to Defcon Academy
A place for hackers to level up.
Throughout the conference, Defcon Academy is your hands-on playground for mastering the art of hacking.
Come learn from the community’s best through live technical talks, real-time demos, and practical challenges. Whether you’re cracking your first binary or refining your hacker workflow, this is your space to explore, break things, and build skills. It’s like a continuous chaotic workshop, where everyone can learn.
Speaker Schedule
| Date | Time | Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08/08 | 10:00 | Terminal Tactics for Beginners: A Hacker’s Guide to Command Line Mastery | alchemy1729 |
| 08/08 | 13:00 | Byte-Sized Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to x86 Assembly | rh4hunnid |
| 08/08 | 15:00 | Exploiting Expectations: A Beginner’s Guide to Buffer Overflows | sjzhu |
| 08/08 | 17:00 | Getting into CTF | x3ero0 |
| 08/09 | 10:00 | Assembly Alchemy: From Opcodes to Exploits | f4_u57 |
| 08/09 | 13:00 | Race Against the Machine | robwaz |
| 08/09 | 16:00 | Professionally Dangerous: Ask the Experts in Vulnerability Research | zardus + panel |
| 08/10 | 10:00 | Format Fu: The Way of the Percent Sign | tedan_vosin |
| 08/10 | 13:00 | Deceit by Design: Exploiting the Lies CPUs Tell During Execution | robwaz |
All talks are beginner-friendly and followed by guided challenges.
Meet the Mentors
We’re not just running talks. The Defcon Academy space is staffed with experienced hackers who will work with you one-on-one or in small groups to tackle our challenges, answer questions, and unlock new skills.
Come with curiosity. Leave with superpowers.
Hands-On Labs
In addition to each talk, hang around for guided challenges tailored to the topic. Try your hand at binary exploitation, reverse engineering, shellcoding, and more with live support from our mentors and fellow hackers.
No laptop? No problem. We have pre-configured machines on-site.
Community
Defcon Academy is a community-driven initiative committed to free and open-source cybersecurity education. We are always looking for passionate contributors, speakers, challenge developers, and educators.
If you are excited about leveling up the hacker community, get in touch!
Founding Members
Location and Hours
Find us in the Defcon Academy community space (Room 235) at DEF CON 33. Open daily, August 8 to August 10.
Come hack, learn, and hang out.