When thousands of security professionals get together in one place, interesting things are bound to happen. When the purpose of that gathering is the presentation of research results and knowledge sharing, "interesting" doesn't begin to cover the scene.

After all was said and done, much of Black Hat could be boiled down to five simple words. Two were launched in the event's opening keynote address, two were shaped by recent news and one seems to be the driving force behind just about every breach and vulnerability that makes it to the news cycle.

The word on everyone's lips as the root cause of our collective troubles? Visibility. Network administrators, managers and executives, you see, don't seem to have any sort of accurate notion of what actually happens on their networks -- or what those networks really contain. If you want to get a handle on your security challenges, the experts say, first get a handle on your network as it exists today. When the hackers know your network better than you do, the hackers always win.

For the other four words and a deeper look at what "visibility" entails, see the original article at SecurityNow.com. And feel free to add your own words. After all, sharing info is in the best tradition of Black Hat.

— Curtis Franklin is the editor of SecurityNow.com. Follow him on Twitter @kg4gwa.