Blackhoodie at BSidesPDX 2025

Buh! We are back to hacky Portland, thanks to our dearest BSidesPDX friends, to spend a whole day poking at CPUs.

TL;DR:

What: class on CPU security, intermediate

When: October 24th, 11am to 5pm

Where: Smith Memorial Student Union

Who: Women

Registration: fill form here (registration open until we reach capacity)

Fees: The training is free; food, travel and hotel is responsibility of attendees

Agenda

Speculative CPU Shenanigans

Teachers: Thaís Moreira Hamasaki (@barbieauglend) , Offensive Security Researcher, Intel STORM

Topic: In this workshop we will deep-dive into security from the CPU perspective. We will learn about Spectre, Meltdown, and other side-channel attacks exploiting speculative/transient execution. We will learn how to use timing (side-channel) attacks to infer information otherwise not reachable to us. It is going to be very hands-on, no slides, no fancy diagrams, not much of a GUI - it’s going to be you, a text editor, a shell, and me (speculatively) having lots of fun!

Prerequisites: Fundamentals of modern computer architecture, coding in C and x86 assembly

What is BlackHoodie?

BlackHoodie is a free, women only reverse engineering workshop and community. More information can be found here: https://www.blackhoodie.re/about/

Why women-only?

One qualifies to attend an in-person bootcamp either if born and raised female, or if one identifies as a woman. This concept of women-only has no intention of putting up walls or feeling exclusive. Blackhoodie is about creating space in an industry that’s very competitive. It is a comfortable place, where attendees feel encouraged to grow skills without pressure. We do what we do, not to create women-only bubbles, as contradicting as it might sound, but to enable a minority to enter the security space, learn skills that are otherwise expensive to learn, find their interests and grow a professional network.

And, it works. BlackHoodie alumnae have gone far beyond being successful in the classroom since the workshop series started. They ventured out to start community projects and collaborations, got themselves new jobs in the security industry, went to speak at major security conferences, joined review boards and become influencers in our community. Many went on to mentor others after they had found their spot, came back to BlackHoodie to give trainings on their own or are now conference trainers and teach classes to the community.

Finally, why does the security industry need more women at all? The industry is growing and facing a talent shortage. More importantly, jobs are typically well paid, come with certain privileges, and are challenging and often fulfilling. And we do firmly believe our society as a whole can only benefit from having more women with money, independence and confidence. Likewise, the tech sector has grown in size and influence, and with great power comes great responsibility – responsibility best shared among a diverse body of decision makers.