How talks have evolved

A year-by-year view of the AllBSides talks archive: how many talks were recorded each year, which topics dominated, and how the difficulty + team mix has shifted across 8,576 recorded talks total.

Heads up: tagging is an ongoing effort and older talks are still being indexed. Earlier years carry thinner coverage, so trend lines reflect both what BSides actually programmed and how much of it has been classified so far.

Talks recorded per year

Each bar is the count of non-hidden talks linked to that year (via a talk's explicit year or the linked event's year).

6,378 of 8,576 talks tagged with a year · 26% not yet tagged

1'11
40'12
49'13
117'14
185'15
259'16
442'17
544'18
567'19
478'20
512'21
561'22
691'23
594'24
1,116'25
222'26

Counted across 8,576 archived talks; years with no recorded talks are not shown.

Top topics by year

Top 5 most-tagged topics per year, ranked by talk count. Each year's row also shows the total number of talks recorded that year for context.

YearTotalTop topics (count)
2026222 talksAI Security (51)·Threat Intel (28)·Vulnerability Research (28)·Detection Engineering (26)·Career & Soft Skills (23)
20251116 talksThreat Intel (146)·Vulnerability Research (133)·AI Security (102)·Web AppSec (98)·Detection Engineering (97)
2024594 talksThreat Intel (66)·Vulnerability Research (63)·Career & Soft Skills (51)·Cloud IAM (47)·Supply Chain Security (44)
2023691 talksThreat Intel (59)·Vulnerability Research (57)·Supply Chain Security (48)·Detection Engineering (44)·Malware Analysis (40)
2022561 talksCareer & Soft Skills (56)·Threat Intel (56)·Vulnerability Research (56)·Web AppSec (51)·Malware Analysis (48)
2021512 talksCareer & Soft Skills (45)·Threat Intel (42)·Malware Analysis (38)·Vulnerability Research (38)·Cloud IAM (32)
2020478 talksCareer & Soft Skills (45)·Threat Intel (27)·Cloud IAM (24)·Web AppSec (23)·DevSecOps (20)
2019567 talksVulnerability Research (41)·Threat Intel (35)·Reverse Engineering (32)·Web AppSec (31)·Detection Engineering (28)
2018544 talksThreat Intel (36)·Malware Analysis (35)·Reverse Engineering (32)·Career & Soft Skills (30)·Web AppSec (26)
2017442 talksMalware Analysis (33)·Web AppSec (29)·Career & Soft Skills (25)·Cryptography (25)·Threat Intel (25)
2016259 talksThreat Intel (15)·Malware Analysis (14)·Vulnerability Research (14)·Detection Engineering (12)·Reverse Engineering (12)
2015185 talksNetwork Security (14)·Cryptography (10)·Web AppSec (10)·Hardware Hacking (9)·Malware Analysis (9)
2014117 talksCareer & Soft Skills (8)·Reverse Engineering (8)·Threat Intel (7)·Web AppSec (7)·Wireless Security (7)
201349 talksDFIR (7)·Threat Intel (7)·Vulnerability Research (7)·Network Security (6)·OSINT (6)
201240 talksCareer & Soft Skills (4)·Web AppSec (4)·Network Security (3)·Cryptography (2)·DevSecOps (2)

Coverage: 3,332 of 8,576 archived talks have a topic tag applied.

Difficulty mix by year

Stacked bar per year. Segment widths show the share of that year's difficulty-tagged talks (not the share of all talks), so the mix is honest even when overall coverage is thin.

IntroIntermediaryAdvanced
202678 of 222 tagged
2025272 of 1116 tagged
2024128 of 594 tagged
2023122 of 691 tagged
2022129 of 561 tagged
202195 of 512 tagged
202088 of 478 tagged
201992 of 567 tagged
201888 of 544 tagged
201754 of 442 tagged
201643 of 259 tagged
201525 of 185 tagged
201417 of 117 tagged
20135 of 49 tagged
20129 of 40 tagged
2011no difficulty tags (1 talks)

Coverage: 1,245 of 8,576 archived talks carry a difficulty tag. Bands with no segment are years that haven't been classified for difficulty yet.

Team focus by year

Same stacking as the difficulty bars, scoped to the team dimension (Red / Blue / Purple). A balanced bar means the year's talks split roughly evenly across the offence / defence / overlap framing.

BlueRedPurple
202677 of 222 tagged
2025314 of 1116 tagged
2024142 of 594 tagged
2023185 of 691 tagged
2022152 of 561 tagged
2021116 of 512 tagged
2020107 of 478 tagged
2019165 of 567 tagged
2018133 of 544 tagged
201793 of 442 tagged
201659 of 259 tagged
201537 of 185 tagged
201419 of 117 tagged
201317 of 49 tagged
20126 of 40 tagged
2011no team tags (1 talks)

Coverage: 1,622 of 8,576 archived talks carry a team tag. Many community / career / policy talks are intentionally untagged for team because they don't fit the offence/defence framing.

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