Blackhoodie at BSidesPDX 2026

Hey folks, We’re excited to be back again to hacky Portland and continue reversing more stuffs!

TL;DR:

What: class on AI Assisted Binary Diffing

When: October 23rd, 10 am to 5 PM

Where: Smith Memorial Student Union, Portland, OR

Who: Women

Registration: Link

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

Agenda

AI Assisted Binary Diffing

Trainer: Bhavna Soman, Principal Security Researcher, Microsoft

In this hands-on workshop, we will look at vulnerable and patched versions of binaries containing recent CVEs. We will learn the steps of binary diffing in Ghidra– function matching, change localization, structural comparison and more. We will automate this workflow using AI throughout the stack– building Ghidra Scripts, MCP tools and Agents Skills. If you want to supercharge your reverse engineering with AI, this workshop is for you!

What do you need to follow this workshop?

  • Basics of x86 disassembly, you can follow this online training by Marion Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4
  • A lot of curiosity!
  • A laptop with
    • Ghidra
    • Claude/Codex/Copilot on CLI

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.