Google VP in charge of Android Security withdraws from Black Hat conference and asks the infosec community to stop using terms like “black hat” and “white hat”
A Google security researcher withdrew from the Black Hat security conference and asked the community to stop using the ‘black hat’ term.
ZDNetCatalin Cimpanu
Context & Ripple Effects
The executive leading Android security — who previously pushed Google's security-patch requirements into its OEM agreements and whose team documented how vendor kernel modifications widen Android's attack surface — is now pulling out of Black Hat and asking the infosec community to abandon the black/white hat vocabulary entirely.
The move fits a longer arc at Google: the company cancelled a 2017 company-wide all-hands after questions and employee names leaked, and a former engineer later claimed execs pressured him off internal forums over diversity debates. A senior security leader publicly challenging the conference's own brand name extends that pattern from internal culture into how the security industry talks about itself.
First-order effects
Black Hat loses a marquee Android security speaker, and the conference now faces public pressure over terminology embedded in its own name.
Second-order effects
Other large corporate security teams that buy from and speak at Black Hat are put on notice to pick a side on 'hat' labels, splitting the community between defenders of hacker-era slang and enterprise-friendly framing.
Third-order effects
If major employers keep steering language, attacker/defender-neutral terminology becomes the default in hiring, certifications, and conference branding, eroding the value of names like Black Hat that trade on the old metaphor.
The trend: As security becomes a mainstream corporate function, big-tech leaders are pushing the industry to retire hacker-culture framing — including the vocabulary its flagship conferences were named after.
I'm confused, I thought black and white hats had their basis in old westerns where the goods guys wore the white hats and the villains wore the black. If I'm being ignorant I apologise https://twitter.com/...
The term “Black Hat” comes from the depiction of a mysterious hacker that stays in the dark, wearing black to avoid drawing attention. It refers to the color of a hat, not the hacker's skin color. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Okay help me out here... Because my first instinct here is to say changing “Blackhat” because it has the word black in it is silly and performative. Is there anything to this? https://twitter.com/...
“Words may mean nothing to the sender, but to the receiver it may mean something. If we can become more mindful about the words that we're using, we can work to mitigate microaggressions.” — SPLC's Lecia Brooks on replacing racist terms https://www.cnet.com/...
Google backs out of infosec conference over the terms “black hat” & “white hat” being racist. — “They will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories, rather than economic equity and real justice."- Malcolm X https://www.zdnet.com/...
“The infosec community is unwilling to accept change” is where the sentence in the article could have ended. What a trash fire of a community. https://twitter.com/...
A reminder that evolving language to be more inclusive and mindful is an ongoing effort that requires eternal vigilance. #NeuralJargon #infosec https://www.notion.so/... https://twitter.com/...
Black hat and white hat are terms that need to change. This has nothing to do with their original meaning, and it's not about race alone - we also need sensible gender-neutral changes like PITM vs. MITM.