Security Conference Talks & Research Guide

Comprehensive Security Conference Talks & Research Guide 🆕 Updated September 12, 2026 — added the HTTP Terminator research theme: autonomous attack-technique discovery, live validation as the bar, and where the autonomy horizon sits. A practitioner’s reference for the global security conference circuit — where research is published, which venues matter for which subject areas, how to pick talks, and how to submit your own. Enhanced with 2026 conference trends, AI security presentation techniques, and modern hybrid event considerations. Draws on @clintgibler’s security research summaries and tl;dr sec. ...

April 10, 2026 Â· Updated September 12, 2026 Â· 32 min Â· Carl Sampson

What Is Variant Hunting in Security? A Deep Dive

Variant hunting is one of the highest-impact activities in modern security research. Rather than looking for single, isolated vulnerabilities, variant hunting focuses on identifying patterns of flaws and tracking down all other instances of that pattern across products, codebases, or architectures. If a traditional vulnerability report is a single missing brick, variant hunting is discovering that the entire wall was built using the wrong blueprint. Quick Answer: What is Variant Hunting? Variant hunting is a security research methodology that: ...

December 3, 2025 Â· 4 min Â· Carl Sampson