✍️ Introduction:
As the cybersecurity community increasingly embraces Mastodon and federated platforms, Infosec.Exchange has emerged as the digital town square for red teamers, blue teamers, threat intel analysts, and privacy advocates. But standing out in a decentralized feed can be a challenge. Hashtags are one of the best ways to connect with others, follow breaking news, and ensure your content reaches the right audience.
This post covers the most popular hashtags used on Infosec.Exchange, what they mean, and how to use them effectively.
🧠 Why Hashtags Matter on Mastodon
Unlike Twitter (X), Mastodon doesn’t use a central algorithm. Hashtags are crucial for discoverability, topic tracking, and building community visibility.
On Infosec.Exchange, hashtags are often tied to:
- Incident response updates
- Malware analysis
- CVE and vulnerability discussions
- Community initiatives like wellness and hiring
You can even follow hashtags directly or view their RSS feeds.
🏷️ Top Hashtags on Infosec.Exchange
Here are some of the most widely used and followed infosec-related tags:
| Hashtag | Description |
|---|---|
#BlueTeam | For defensive security posts: SOC, SIEM, detection engineering, IR |
#RedTeam | Offensive security, pentesting, ethical hacking |
#DFIR | Digital Forensics and Incident Response |
#Malware | Discussions, sample drops, and analysis of malware |
#CVE | CVE-specific info, PoCs, and discussions around known vulnerabilities |
#IOC / #IOCs | Indicators of Compromise and sharing artifacts |
#ThreatIntel | Threat intelligence news, campaigns, IOCs, and research |
#CyberJobs | Job postings and hiring news in infosec |
#Remote | Remote-friendly job listings in cyber |
#DFIRFit | Community health/wellness tag for DFIR and SOC folks |
💡 Best Practices
- Use CamelCase:
#ThreatIntelinstead of#threatintel→ this improves readability and accessibility. - Limit to a few key hashtags per post for clarity and relevance.
- No punctuation or special characters in hashtags (underscores are okay).
- If using a Content Warning (CW), include hashtags in the CW text, not the hidden part, so they stay discoverable.
- Consider pinning favorite tags to your Infosec.Exchange interface for easier monitoring.
📢 Bonus: RSS Feeds for Hashtags
You can follow Mastodon hashtags via RSS! For example, to track #DFIR, just plug this into your feed reader:
https://infosec.exchange/tags/DFIR.rssThis makes it easy to monitor activity even if you’re not logged in to your Mastodon account.
🚀 Final Thoughts
Whether you’re sharing a blog post, live-tweeting a conference talk (or should we say live-tooting?), or simply looking to network with fellow professionals, hashtags are your best friend on Infosec.Exchange. Stick with the community’s most popular tags, stay consistent, and you’ll build a solid following in no time.
