Black Hat MEA’s Tom Bourgoin On The Event’s 2025 Edition Being Its Biggest Yet

This year’s edition of Black Hat MEA, which ran from December 2–4, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been declared the world’s largest cybersecurity floorshow for the second year in a row, with the event being its largest installment to date. 

Spanning an area of 60,612 sq. m., Black Hat MEA 2025 brought together 500 global brands, 300 speakers, and more than 40,000 attendees from over 163 countries, with $13.9 billion worth of investor assets under management represented across the show floor. 

In a conversation with Inc. Arabia, Tom Bourgoin, Senior Event Manager at Black Hat MEA, highlighted how the Riyadh event has become a central gathering point for the global cybersecurity community. 

“[The] real standout highlights for me is the sheer growth of the community, from students to Fortune 500 chief information security officers (CISOs) and government representatives,” Bourgoin told Inc. Arabia. “I think this event really helps position Saudi Arabia as one of the most important global cybersecurity hubs.” 

Black Hat MEA 2025 featured hands-on activities as well as talks, panel discussions, and keynotes. 

Both the scale and depth of Black Hat MEA were evident in the world’s largest Capture the Flag competition staged at the event, which saw teams working through exploit challenges involving cryptography, reverse engineering, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven attack surfaces. After three days of competition, the top Saudi team position was awarded to Platinum, while 0xA placed first in the international category.  

Black Hat MEA this year also played host to the Bug Bounty Cup, which closed with Omar Alzughaibi taking first place after uncovering high-impact vulnerabilities across live environments on the BugBounty.sa platform. Meanwhile, on the startup stage, the CyberSeed competition saw 10 shortlisted companies pitching to investors, CISOs, and industry leaders in a session designed to spotlight founders developing new defensive technologies.

The contest ended up seeing Sahl, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered governance, risk, and compliance platform built for the MENA region, winning the $30,000 equity-free prize. The startup has also gained the chance to represent the MENA at the upcoming American installment of Black Hat in the Global Startup Spotlight competition, where it will battle similar champions from other regions.   

Discussions at Black Hat MEA 2025 also set the stage for what cybersecurity is going to look like in the future. For instance, in a talk titled “Strike First in the AI War: Rewiring the Internet with Zero Trust,” ADAMnetworks founder and CEO David Redekop discussed the rise in phishing and domain abuse. He noted that “80 percent of the world’s economic engine is still powered by small, medium businesses” that often lack modern controls, while offensive AI activity has increased by 4,151 percent. As such, Redekop called for moving protective controls lower in the technology stack so that defenders can act earlier in the kill chain, and address threats that traditional detection layers miss.  

Another notable session focused on the growing importance of cyber insurance readiness, with Daniel Bowden, CISO at Marsh McLennan, telling audiences that incident response planning has become a strong indicator of whether an organization can withstand a breach. As he put it, “the punchline for being insurable is how likely you are to have a breach,” noting that a well-rehearsed, fully mapped incident response plan is the control that most reduces that likelihood. Bowden thus encouraged security leaders to work closely with brokers who “see incidents from all of their clients every day” and understand where defenses often break down.  

Discussions at Black Hat MEA set the stage for what cybersecurity will look like in the future. 

Having thus wrapped up a successful 2025 edition, Black Hat MEA is now set to return to Riyadh from December 1-3, 2026, with a deeper technical program and expanded competitions shaped by this year's discussion themes.  

“Black Hat MEA is more than just a conference,” Bourgoin told Inc. Arabia. “It really is the meeting point for the global cybersecurity community. You’ve got world-class speakers, hands-on training, real business happening on the show floor, and it’s the largest gathering of cybersecurity talent in the region. So, if you care about cybersecurity, whether you're a beginner or a global leader, there's simply nowhere else to be.” 

Registration for Black Hat MEA 2026 is open for early sign-ups here.  

Pictured in the lead image is Tom Bourgoin, Senior Event Manager at Black Hat MEA. All images courtesy Tahaluf.