A record 17,000 people descended on Las Vegas last week for Black Hat USA 2018, a massive cybersecurity conference, as breaches increasingly grab headlines globally.

One of the core themes during the conference was a need for more information sharing in the industry, said John McCumber, director of cybersecurity advocacy at (ISC)2, a global provider of cybersecurity certifications.

“This is not a new concept, but one that has been repeated for years now,” he said. “The technology fix for this is beyond simple and could happen tomorrow. The real issue at hand is that most organizations have data-management policies that stymie this type of open sharing environment. Unfortunately, you can’t solve policy issues with technology. A first step is to ask ourselves, ‘How do our policies align with the need for sharing information?’ Only by tackling that aspect head-on will we make any real impact on how our systems and people are able to communicate to mitigate risks.”

The conference included presentations and briefings, training, job recruiting, and companies demonstrating their latest technology, and was followed by Def Con, a hacker convention.

Scroll through our gallery below for highlights.