// how bsides mumbai came to be

We started contributing to the infosec community back in our college days by hosting CTF events - at the time we ranked top 3 in India and top 50 internationally. We loved building challenges and helping people learn the competitive way, where only the serious crowd got involved. What began as a student CTF team has grown, over six years, into one of India's community-driven security conferences.

1. 2020
   DARKCTF · DARKARMY

   We kicked off as DARKARMY with DARKCTF. It pulled in 4,700+ participants across 800+ teams - a crowd connected from all over the world through our Discord server.

2. 2021
   DARKCON + BSides Noida

   We leveled up to DARKCON - a virtual conference plus CTF during the pandemic - with 1,500 people attending across two days. Seeing how closely the BSides ethos matched our community work, we got approval and ran BSides Noida in Aug 2021, drawing 3,000 virtual participants.

3. 2022
   BSides Mumbai begins

   Life moved on - many of us went from students to corporate employees and the team relocated to Mumbai and Bangalore. We brought the community to Mumbai for BSides Mumbai 2022, hosting the CTF as a start while we settled in.

4. 2023
   Heads down

   A quieter year as the team adapted to the new rhythm of corporate life - regrouping for what came next.

5. 2024
   First in-person edition

   We came back with our first in-person event as Security BSides Mumbai - our first taste of hosting a live crowd: ~156 attendees, 13 speakers and 6 sponsors.

6. 2025
   Scaling up

   We grew to ~313 attendees, 49 speakers and 4 sponsors - and decided to keep pushing it forward.

7. 2026
   Edition 03

   This year we're expecting 300-500 participants. The more we grow, the more you grow.