Keynotes to address fragmented data protection regulations across APAC, data sovereignty imperatives, and the rise of continuous AI-driven offensive systems now targeting the region
Black Hat, the cybersecurity industry’s most established and in-depth security event series, today announced Violet Blue, investigative journalist, and Ari Herbert-Voss, CEO and Co-Founder of RunSybil, as Keynote speakers for Black Hat Asia 2026. These security experts will take the stage on Thursday, April 23 and Friday, April 24 at Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore, examining how privacy-first frameworks and autonomous AI systems are fundamentally reshaping security strategy across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
With APAC nations facing a surge in ransomware attacks and fragmented data protection regulations across jurisdictions, these threats pose unique challenges to the region’s rapidly digitizing economies. To address these challenges, morning Keynotes will open each day of Briefings, delivering critical insights on data sovereignty, offensive automation, and the defensive adaptations required to meet these evolving challenges.
Black Hat Asia 2026 Keynote Lineup:
- Thursday, April 23 at 9:00 AM – Privacy is the Captain. Security is the Practice
- Speaker: This Keynote will be presented by Violet Blue, six-time award-winning author and investigative journalist on cybersecurity, Covid-19, and privacy. Her bylines include WIRED, Engadget, Financial Times, CNN, CBS News, San Francisco Chronicle, Popular Science, O The Oprah Magazine, The Spinoff, and many others.
- Topic: Blue will challenge the fracturing global consensus on data privacy, examining how researchers, scholars, and activists are redefining privacy and security through principles of agency and data sovereignty. She’ll explore what sustainable privacy policy looks like as traditional frameworks become increasingly obsolete across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
- Friday, April 24 at 9:00 AM – From Prompt Tricks to Autonomous Hackers: The Rise of Agentic Offensive Security
- Speaker: This Keynote will be presented by Ari Herbert-Voss, CEO and Co-Founder of RunSybil, an AI-native cybersecurity company pioneering automated offensive security solutions. Previously, Herbert-Voss was the first research scientist at OpenAI focused on developing algorithmic exploits for large language models and led the red team engagements for the GPT3 and Codex model releases.
- Topic: Herbert-Voss will trace the three-year evolution of autonomous offensive security systems, evaluating where automation is already effective and where human expertise remains essential. They’ll explain why traditional point-in-time security testing is obsolete when attacks can now run continuously at scale and without human intervention.
Beyond Keynotes, two high-priority Main Stage sessions will deliver actionable intelligence on the defensive blind spots and automation failures security teams can no longer afford to ignore.
Main Stage Lineup:
- Thursday, April 23 at 12:15 PM – Vulnerable Drivers: The Gaping Hole in Defenses that Nobody Wants to Talk About
- Speaker: This Main Stage session will be presented by Dick O’Brien, Principal Intelligence Analyst on the Symantec + Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team at Broadcom. Threat Hunter is responsible for investigating critical threats, including espionage and high-level cybercrime, in order to improve their detection capabilities and share threat intelligence with customers.
- Topic: O’Brien will expose the alarming rise of Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attacks, now standard in ransomware campaigns, that disable endpoint security at the kernel level. He’ll reveal why Microsoft’s protections are failing, how attackers weaponize signed drivers undetected, and defensive strategies to counter this threat.
- Friday, April 24 at 12:15 PM – A Framework for Secure, Intelligent Workflows
- Speaker: This Main Stage session will be presented by Eoin Hinchy, co-founder and CEO of Tines. Prior to Tines, Eoin spent 15 years leading security operations at companies like eBay, PayPal, and DocuSign.
- Topic: Hinchy will reveal how poorly implemented AI and automation introduce new security vulnerabilities. He’ll present a framework for building secure workflows that combine human expertise, deterministic automation, and AI capabilities, outlining how to scale operations without compromising control, auditability, or security.
Registration and Event Details
To attend these sessions and explore the full Black Hat Asia 2026 program, registration is now open at blackhat.com/asia-26/.
Top Sponsors and Partners of Black Hat Asia 2026 include:
- Platinum Sponsors: Bitdefender, Broadcom, Concentric AI, SOCRadar Cyber Intelligence, ThreatLocker, and Tines.
- Silver Sponsors: Astra Security,Censys,Corellium, Dream Security, EasyDMARC, Filigran, Fortra, ManageEngine, SecureFlag, Sparrow, Sumo Logic, TuxCare, and Varonis.
- Sustaining Partners: Armis, Cyera, Google, ManageEngine, Qualys, SentinelOne, Sophos, Tenable, ThreatLocker, TrendAI, Varonis, and Wiz.
- Global Partners: Broadcom, Censys, Concentric AI, Corellium, EasyDMARC, HackerOne, Semgrep, ThreatLocker, Tines, Tracebit, VulnCheck, wolfSSL, and Zenity.
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