In Pictures: Hackers in the limelight. Scenes from Black Hat 2012

Breaking in: Security experts do their best

Government and corporate security professionals descend on Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas this week for the annual exchange of information on the latest attacks and suggestions for defenses. In its 15th year, the Black Hat security conference has become an important mecca for the information security community.

As is the conference's tradition, speakers showed off how they could make or prove almost anything insecure, upping the ante for both black-hat and white-hat hackers with their exploits. Some offered encouragement that the good guys could even win.