Keeping your PR plans secure for Black Hat 2025

As attackers learn to exploit new vulnerabilities using tools like AI, cybersecurity leaders will want to project their safety and security against potential threats. That’s why this year’s Black Hat is the prime opportunity to showcase cybersecurity thought leaders and announcements to showcase your latest breakthroughs.

To do so, communications and marketing teams will need to take a few key steps to ensure they’re putting their best foot forward.

Work smarter and earlier

Researching and understanding the agenda for Black Hat sets you up for success. New sessions this year, such as “Use and Abuse of Personal Information — Politics Edition” and “From Prompts to Pwns: Exploiting and Securing AI Agents,” make it clear that privacy and AI will be center stage at this year’s Black Hat. Staying on theme makes it easier for reporters to include your company in round-up pieces, which can lead to more interview opportunities.

Teams that want to buck the trend and stand out can present messaging that demonstrates how they operate differently from the rest of the industry. This is a great strategy if you want to share forward-looking solutions for next-gen tech.

It’s time to start digging through your LinkedIn timeline and identify who’s attending. Determining the reporters attending is crucial for preparing to secure media interest at Black Hat. To many PR pros’ chagrin, reporters don’t typically announce they’re attending an event until a week or so before the doors open. To work ahead, look at the reporters who attended last year. There’s a good chance they’re planning to attend again.

Once you’ve identified your reporters, it’s time to start reaching out! For the best chance to secure interviews with flexible timing and get to the top of the reporter’s inbox, media relations teams should start contacting reporters no later than mid-July. Reporters typically return to Black Hat if they’ve covered it in the past.

Keep your spokespeople on message

You did everything you could to best prepare. The event themes are memorized, and you may even have some interviews lined up for your executives. Now comes the part that may be the most difficult: prepping your spokespeople with messaging.

In a perfect world, your spokespeople have multiple interviews and meetings scheduled throughout the day. That means they’re talking to many reporters with different audiences and different goals. Creating messaging guidelines that are clear and easy to follow is crucial to having the best coverage of your latest cybersecurity news and talking points.

There’s no harm in having a PR representative on-site. Having an in-person representative who is close to that media relationship can help navigate the conversation and remind your spokesperson and the reporter of the intended focus of the discussion.

That’s where Bospar comes in. From on-site media coordination to message reinforcement and real-time troubleshooting, Bospar’s live events team specializes in maximizing visibility and minimizing stress. We help ensure your spokespeople are polished, on-message and confident, whether it’s a last-minute walk-up interview or a high-stakes press briefing. Our team handles media check-ins, facilitates reporter connections and provides ongoing support before, during and after the event. We show up with purpose, ensuring every opportunity is leveraged to its full potential.

Post-Black Hat support

The event is over and you had your interviews afterward. Now comes the post-event coverage.

Most security and IT trade outlets will cover Black Hat weeks after the event is over, as they synthesize the key conversations that took place. This is when monitoring and keeping in touch with reporters will pay dividends.

Let reporters know of any updates to announcements made during the event and availability for any follow-ups. This is also a good opportunity, if you didn’t have much success ahead of the event, to offer some hindsight perspective to reporters who are covering the industry in a post-Black Hat world.

The name of the game is being prepared ahead of when you need it. Whether that’s solidifying your message or finding key reporters to set up briefings with, you cannot skimp on the details when preparing for this year’s Black Hat.