September 18–19, 2026 | Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC) | Boca Raton, Florida
The South Florida cybersecurity community comes together September 18–19 for the SFISSA 2026 Cybersecurity Conference & Hack the Flag, hosted by ISSA South Florida.
This year’s theme, Humans vs. Agents, explores a cybersecurity landscape increasingly shaped by AI, automation and autonomous agents, but the conference goes far beyond AI. Across two days, attendees can expect
- 44 speakers
- three full talk tracks
- hands-on workshops
- interactive cybersecurity villages
- 25 sponsors and community partners
- Beginner and Advanced Capture the Flag competitions
- networking
- vendors
- a Chili Cook-Off
- and more.
Whether you’re a CISO, security practitioner, hacker, student, educator, developer, GRC or identity professional, or simply interested in cybersecurity, you’re invited.
Friday, September 18: Conference Day
Friday is our full cybersecurity conference, bringing together leaders and practitioners from enterprise security, AI, offensive security, identity, governance, risk, application security, incident response, academia and more.
Talks & Featured Sessions
This year’s program includes:
- Craig Riddell — Continuous Vendor Intelligence: Modernizing TPRM for the AI Era
- Ray Bango — Weaponizing Certificate Services: Forging ADCS Attack Paths to Domain Admin
- Dr. Andy Santana, Liliane Scarpari, Luis Encinosa & Scott Altiparmak — Steal It Now, Read It Later: DLP in the Age of AI and Quantum
- Patrick Wadsworth — AI-Assisted GRC: Automating Policy and Audit Evidence Mapping with Local LLMs
- Samuel Greenfeld — Beyond the Buck: Technical Relationships with Your Vendors
- Janet Heins, CISSP — Featured Keynote and author of Go Ahead… Ask For It!
- Dr. Johnny Guimaraes, Dr. George Antoniou, Noelle Greene & Dr. Solange Amado Blunt — The Future of AI in Higher Education
- Dr. Nima Schei & Patrick Heim — Humans vs. Agents: From Authentication to Continuous Trust — Securing Identity in the Agentic AI Era
- Yesha Patel, IBM — AI Agents Under Attack: Securing Autonomous Systems in the Age of Agentic AI
- Andrew Parry, Greg Taffet, Paul Christian, Richard Coggins & David Less — Leading, Governing and Securing the Agentic Enterprise
- Adrian Oropeza, Microsoft — Beyond the Breach: Building Mature Fraud and Abuse Defenses
- Erik Cabetas, Include Security — AI-Assisted Web Application Pentesting — Field Notes and Lessons Learned
- Jorge Orchilles, Verizon — The Evolution and Future of Offensive Security
- Armando Seay — How Agentic AI Can Accelerate Cybersecurity Compliance and Resilience
- Sara Alfadil — Security Side Quests for Game Studios
From technical attacks and offensive security to AI governance, identity, fraud, GRC, DLP and enterprise leadership, the goal is to give attendees plenty of different conversations to choose from throughout the day.
Hands-On Workshops
In addition to the three main talk tracks, SFISSA 2026 includes a substantial workshop program for attendees who want something more interactive.
Workshops include:
- Alon Bender — Hack Your AI-Generated Playbook: Build It, Then Break Its Guardrails
- Justin Wan — Your First Homelab and Where It Can Take You
- Tom Market — Overview of InfraGard
- Mitchell Roshel — Building Strong Talent Pipelines: Engaging, Attracting & Developing Emerging & Early Career Talent
- Kris Rides — Root To CISO – Just AIsk
- Kellep Charles — Securing AI Systems Through LLM Red Teaming: A Practical Pillar of Modern AI Governance
- Katelin Shaffer, GuidePoint Security — The Door Is the Last Step
- Miriam Celi — Threat Modeling Under Adversarial Pressure
- Cariel Cohen — Stop Chatting. Start Looping: Live Agents in Production for Cybersecurity Tasks
- Jeremy Herzog, Torq — Interactive workshop session
The workshops give attendees an opportunity to move beyond presentations and explore AI security, LLM red teaming, threat modeling, homelabs, cybersecurity careers, automation, physical security and other topics in a more interactive setting.
Interactive Cybersecurity Villages
One of the things that makes SFISSA different from a traditional conference is the opportunity to get out of your chair and actually do something. Throughout the event, attendees can explore interactive villages including:
- Retro Computing — Several tables displaying retro computers from the 80s and 90s, staffed with members of the Florida Retro computer Club, to address any questions that the attendees may have.
- Makers’ Village – people make things
- Lock Picking — Explore locks, physical security and lock-picking fundamentals in an educational environment.
- AWS Cloud Village – AWS Cloud Village is a hands-on, interactive experience where participants explore computer basics, cloud computing through real-world with AWS activities and concepts. Build, secure, and deploy cloud resources, experiment with hardware, AI, and cybersecurity concepts, connect with industry professionals, and discover cloud career opportunities. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced practitioner, there’s something for everyone.
- Wi-Fi — Curious about how Wi-Fi really works? Stop by the Wi-Fi Village to explore the world of wireless networking in a fun, beginner-friendly environment. Whether you’re new to cybersecurity or already enjoy tinkering with technology, you’ll learn common Wi-Fi terminology, discover how wireless networks communicate, and gain a better understanding of how to secure your home and office networks. The village will feature hands-on demonstrations, educational displays, and interactive activities designed to teach participants about common Wi-Fi vulnerabilities, secure router configurations, signal strength, interference, and other wireless security concepts. You’ll have the opportunity to safely explore real-world scenarios, ask questions, and experiment with equipment in a controlled environment—no prior experience required. Come learn, tinker, and discover how a little knowledge about Wi-Fi can go a long way toward building safer and more secure wireless networks.
- Blacks in Cyber – BIC Village is a community-driven cybersecurity village focused on increasing representation, access, and professional growth for Black cybersecurity professionals, students, and allies. The village combines hands-on technical activities, career development, education, gaming, and community engagement to create an inclusive space where attendees can learn, connect, and build practical cybersecurity skills. Through workshops, challenges, discussions, and networking, BIC Village helps introduce new participants to cybersecurity while providing experienced professionals with opportunities to share knowledge, mentor others, and strengthen the broader security community.
- FAU Cyber Owls — the fau cybersecurity club
- Guident — Autonomous Robotics & Inspection. Guident extends its operating platform to robotic inspection and facility monitoring environments, supporting anomaly detection, incident response, and reporting for autonomous robotic systems. Thermographic & gas leak detection, Dynamic object avoidance, Rain, dust & temperature resilient
You don’t have to be an expert. Walk up, ask questions, try something and learn something.
Friday Reception
When the talks and workshops finish, stick around.
Our Friday reception brings speakers, attendees, sponsors, volunteers and community members together after a full day of learning. It’s an opportunity to continue conversations, meet people you may have only known online, connect with speakers and spend some time with the South Florida cybersecurity community without another presentation starting in five minutes.
Saturday, September 19: Hack the Flag
Saturday changes gears. It’s time to hack.
SFISSA Hack the Flag brings together experienced security practitioners, students, emerging professionals and hackers for a full day of hands-on cybersecurity competition.
And this year, we’re running two separate CTF experiences: Beginner and Advanced.
Beginner Capture the Flag — Powered by Hack The Box
Never competed in a CTF before? That’s exactly why this one exists.
Our Beginner Capture the Flag, delivered with Hack The Box, is designed to make hands-on cybersecurity competition accessible to students, emerging professionals and anyone who wants to develop their technical skills. Teams can include up to six competitors, working together through approximately 20–25 challenges spanning areas such as: AI/ML • Web Exploitation • Reverse Engineering • Digital Forensics • OSINT • Cryptography • Networking • Privilege Escalation • Scripting & Automation
You don’t need to know how to solve every challenge. Bring your laptop, build a team, work through the problems, learn from each other and see how far you can get.
Advanced Capture the Flag
For experienced competitors looking for something considerably harder, SFISSA will also host an Advanced Capture the Flag competition. The Advanced CTF is designed for experienced hackers, penetration testers, red teamers, security engineers, researchers and technical practitioners ready to put their offensive security, problem-solving, persistence and teamwork to the test.
Whether you’re coming to compete seriously or simply want to see how your skills stack up, Saturday is the day to put them to work.
SFISSA Chili Cook-Off
Cybersecurity isn’t the only competition happening Saturday. The SFISSA Chili Cook-Off returns alongside Hack the Flag. While hackers battle through technical challenges, our chili competitors will be fighting for a completely different kind of victory. Come hungry.
Meet the SFISSA 2026 Speakers
Across the conference and workshops, SFISSA 2026 brings together 44 speakers spanning cybersecurity leadership, AI, offensive security, incident response, identity, governance, engineering, education and security research. The speaker roster includes professionals from organizations such as IBM, Microsoft, Verizon, BankUnited, Nicklaus Children’s Health System, Miami Dade College, Broward College, St. Thomas University, Lynn University, McGraw Hill, Include Security, Horizon3, GuidePoint Security, Torq, Lema.ai, DTEX, H.I.G. Capital and others.
Thank You to Our 25 Sponsors & Community Partners
A community-driven conference of this scale simply doesn’t happen without organizations willing to invest in cybersecurity education, professional development and the South Florida security community.
We are incredibly grateful to the 25 sponsors and community partners supporting SFISSA 2026.
HEADLINER
Torq
DIAMOND
Tenable • ColorTokens • ENT • ThreatLocker • Check Point Software Technologies • Netwrix • Horizon3
PLATINUM
Lema • Prophet Security • Palo Alto Networks • Myriad360
GOLD
Tier4 • Amplix • Penti • Island • Compuquip • Guident
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
ISACA • CIO Council • InfraGard • SIM • ITrade • HackMiami • Blacks In Cyber
Please take time during the conference to visit our sponsors and community partners, meet their teams, ask questions and thank them for helping make SFISSA 2026 possible.
Who Should Attend?
SFISSA 2026 is built for the entire cybersecurity community: CISOs, CIOs, security executives, SOC analysts, engineers, penetration testers, red teamers, blue teamers, identity professionals, GRC professionals, developers, researchers, students, professors, hackers, technology professionals and people trying to enter cybersecurity.
Some attendees will come to hear a CISO. Some will attack a CTF challenge. Some will learn how to pick a lock. Some will experiment with AI. Some will meet a mentor. Some may meet their next employer, employee, customer, business partner or friend.
That’s what community is supposed to do.
Built by the Community
ISSA South Florida is a community-driven organization, and this conference exists because people choose to participate. Speakers share their knowledge. Workshop leaders teach. Village organizers bring their equipment and expertise. CTF teams create challenges. Sponsors invest in the community. Volunteers give their time. And attendees show up ready to participate.
Technology will continue to change. AI will change cybersecurity again. Community remains.
Join Us
Friday, September 18: Conference talks, keynote, workshops, villages, sponsors, networking and reception.
Saturday, September 19: Beginner and Advanced Capture the Flag competitions, villages, vendors, Chili Cook-Off, prizes and community.
Whether you’ve been involved with ISSA for years or you’ve never attended an ISSA event before, consider this your invitation.
Come for the talks. Try a workshop. Explore the villages. Meet the speakers. Talk to our sponsors. Compete in the CTF. Eat some chili.
Most importantly, come meet the community.
We’ll see you at SFISSA 2026.
