BSides Belfast

BSides Belfast Returns Thursday September 10th 2026

BSides Belfast 2026

BSides Belfast 2026 will be our eighth BSides event hosted in Northern Ireland. We are very excited to bring this event to the community again, and huge thanks for your interest in supporting this event. 

Ireland both North & South are host to many major IT companies; in recent decades the influx of IT companies has also included many that are specifically working on cybersecurity, and while there are a growing number of gatherings for development and security related interests; BSides Belfast maintains its position as a central hub-event for these disparate groups and interests, supporting the community to share and grow their expertise together.

This is the seventh time we have held a BSides event in Belfast. We are expecting 600-700 attendees from around the island of Ireland, the UK, and Europe, and will be curating at least two tracks of talks and technical workshops. 

With an organising committee drawn from the broad range of IT and Information Security companies across Northern Ireland, we are well placed to curate the best that the region has to offer and to provide the community with opportunities to collaborate and network that no other event can. 

With support from other BSides event organisers, as well as the network of industry contacts our committee has, we are also planning to attract top-class international speakers. 

We will also be providing rookie support to foster local talent and grow Belfast’s reputation as “the cybersecurity city” via a range of hands-on workshops, in-advance speaker and facilitator preparation sessions and competitions as well as all the informal discussion that an event like this facilitates completes the package.

BSides was born in 2009 when a number of quality speakers were rejected from a mainstream conference, not due to lack of quality but rather lack of space and time. Our mission is to provide people with options by removing common conference barriers and by providing more options for speakers, topics, and events.

History of Security BSides

BSides was born in 2009 when several quality speakers were rejected from a mainstream conference, not due to lack of quality but rather lack of space and time. They decided to host their own conferences for their talks – hence the name “BSides”, in reference to additional tracks on music singles. Our mission is to provide people with options by removing common conference barriers and by providing more options for speakers, topics, and events. 

• 2009: Launched in Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A. 
• 2010: BSides holds the first European event.
• 2011: First event in London which has since become a leading info security conference in the UK.
• 2014: First Bsides Manchester with the current BSides total equalling more than 160 events, in 74 cities, in 16 countries, on 6 continents. 
• 2015: Growing Strong with 200+ events all over the world
• 2016: Belfast, Northern Ireland gets put on the map!
• 2017-2019: BSides Belfast grows in attendance from 150 to 450 attendees
• 2023: BSides Belfast returns post-Pandemic with over 500 attendees!
• 2024: BSides Belfast grows to 650 attendees
• 2025: Grows to 700 attendees

The BSides events are community driven, thousands of people have attended and written about their experience at BSides events.