Cybersecurity is a topic that concerns everyone, from individuals through to major corporations and government. With the rapid proliferation of new threats appearing globally, it makes sense to stay on top of the latest news and advice on cybersecurity matters. IT Chronicles has compiled a list of the top thirty influencers in the cybersecurity space, if you want to keep up with the current state of play in this important area, we recommend you follow these accounts.
1. Danny Palmer
Danny Palmer is a senior reporter at ZDNet. Based in London, he writes about issues including cyber-security, hacking and malware threats
2. Eugene Kaspersky
Eugene Kaspersky began his career in cybersecurity accidentally when his computer became infected with the ‘Cascade’ virus in 1989. Eugene’s specialized education in cryptography helped him analyze the encrypted virus, understand its behavior, and develop a removal tool for it. After successfully removing the virus, Eugene’s curiosity and passion for computer technology drove him to start analyzing more malicious programs and developing disinfection modules for them.
3. Richard Bejtlich
Since 1998 Richard Bejtlich has defended Western interests from advanced digital intruders. Richard promotes Network Security Monitoring solutions to help global organizations stay in business by detecting and responding to digital threats.
4. Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick is the world’s most famous hacker, bestselling author, and the top cyber security speaker. Once one of the FBI’s Most Wanted because he hacked into 40 major corporations just for the challenge, Kevin is now a trusted security consultant to the Fortune 500 and governments worldwide.
5. Eva Galperin
Eva Galperin is EFF’s Director of Cybersecurity. Prior to 2007, when she came to work for EFF, Eva worked in security and IT in Silicon Valley and earned degrees in Political Science and International Relations from SFSU. Her work is primarily focused on providing privacy and security for vulnerable populations around the world.
6. Chaouki Bekrar
Chaouki Bekrar was described as The Wolf of Vuln Street & ‘Darth Vader of Cybersecurity’ by to a journalist. He is the founder of @Zerodium and VUPEN
7. Joseph Steinberg
Joseph Steinberg is a recognized cybersecurity thought leader, CEO, and technology influencer. Steinberg is also one of the best-read columnists in the cybersecurity field, and a respected authority on other “cool tech” products – having amassed millions of readers as a regular columnist for Forbes and Inc. magazines. He serves as an expert witness and consultant on matters related to information security and emerging technologies, and has advised businesses and the US government on such issues.
8. Alan Woodward
Alan Woodward has been at the leading edge of technology development for many years, he is primarily a particularly good communicator. He is known for his ability to communicate complex ideas in a simple, yet passionate manner. He not only publishes in the academic and trade journals but has articles in the national press and comments on TV and radio. Despite the length of his experience, his hands-on ability with emerging technologies contributes significantly to the respect he is repeatedly shown when he leads teams where technology is involved.
9. Thomas Fox-Brewster
Thomas Fox Brewster covers security and privacy for Forbes. He has been breaking news and writing features on these topics for major publications since 2010. As a freelancer, he worked for The Guardian, Vice Motherboard, Wired and BBC.com, amongst many others. Thomas was named BT Security Journalist of the year in 2012 and 2013 for a range of exclusive articles, and in 2014 was handed Best News Story for a feature on US government harassment of security professionals.
10. Sara Sorcher
Sara Sorcher is the White House editor at USA Today. She joined the Washington bureau in April 2017 and runs a team of five reporters covering the Trump administration. Previously, she was deputy editor of Passcode, a section of The Christian Science Monitor covering digital security and privacy.
11. Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley is an award-winning computer security expert, writer and public speaker. Graham has been fighting cybercrime since early 1990s. Co-host of the @SmashinSecurity podcast
12. William H Saito
William H Saito is a Cybersecurity expert, board member, author, speaker and Special Adviser to the Cabinet Office – Government of Japan. William was named by Nikkei as one of the 100 Most Influential People for Japan, Saito began software programming in elementary school and started his own company while still in high school. He was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998 (by Ernst & Young, NASDAQ and USA Today), and is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on cybersecurity.
13. Dan Kaminsky
Dan Kaminsky has been a noted security researcher for over a decade, and has spent his career advising Fortune 500 companies such as Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft. Dan spent three years working with Microsoft on their Vista, Server 2008, and Windows 7 releases. Dan is best known for his work finding a critical flaw in the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS), and for leading what became the largest synchronized fix to the Internet’s infrastructure of all time.
14. Troy Hunt
Troy Hunt is an Australian Microsoft Regional Director and also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Developer Security. Troy doesn’t work for Microsoft, but they recognise his community contributions by way of their award programs which he has been an awardee of since 2011.
15. Kim Zetter
Kim Zetter is the Author of the book Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon. Kim is an award-winning investigative journalist who specializes in cybersecurity and national security, as well as privacy and civil liberties issues.
16. Dave Lewis
Dave Lewis is a security practitioner who has been in computer, network & information security for almost two decades. He has worked in multiple industries including financial, military, government, critical infrastructure and health care verticals.
17. Dave Kennedy
Dave Kennedy is the founder and senior principal security consultant at TrustedSec. Dave is a Security expert, keynote speaker, avid gamer and the go-to for protecting companies from threats. Prior to starting TrustedSec, David was the Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Diebold Incorporated, a Fortune 1000 company, with locations in over 80 countries. He developed a global security program that tackled all aspects of information security and risk management. Kennedy started his professional career as a member of the United States Marine Corps (USMC), and was deployed to Iraq twice for intelligence related missions.
18. Josh Corman
Josh Corman is the director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center and a founder of I am The Cavalry (dot org). He co-founded @RuggedSoftware and @IamTheCavalry to encourage new security approaches in response to the world’s increasing dependence on digital infrastructure. Josh’s unique approach to security in the context of human factors, adversary motivations, and social impact has helped position him as one of the most trusted names in security.
19. Lenny Zeltser
Lenny Zeltser is a seasoned business and tech leader with extensive information security expertise. He builds innovative endpoint defense solutions as VP of Products at Minerva. Lenny helps shape global infosec practices by teaching incident response and malware defenses at SANS Institute and by sharing knowledge through writing, public speaking and community projects.
20. Lee Munson
Lee Munson is BH Consulting’s Social Media Manager and a contributor to the Sophos Naked Security blog. Coming from a retail background his huge amount of passion for the topic of information security has been gained through his research, self-education and writing on various aspects of the discipline. Through this work he has gained a unique insight into security and brings the ability to translate the highly technical field that is information security into plain language that business people and other non-technical folks can better understand.
21. Katie Moussouris
Kate Moussouris is an American computer security researcher and writer who is best known for her ongoing work advocating responsible security research. She created the bug bounty program at Microsoft.
22. J Wolfgang Goerlich
J Wolfgang Goerlich is a cyber security strategist and an active part of the Michigan security community. He co-founded the OWASP Detroit chapter and organizes the annual Converge and BSides Detroit conferences. Wolfgang has held roles such as the Vice President of Consulting, Security Officer, and Vice President of Technology Services. He regularly advises clients on topics ranging from risk management, incident response, business continuity, secure development life cycles, and more.
23. Dan Tentler
Dan Tentler is the founder of the Phobos group, a lean, committed organization providing attack, defensive and intelligence services to their clients.
24. Dr. Anton Chuvakin
Dr. Anton Chuvakin is a Research Vice President at Gartner’s Gartner for Technical Professionals (GTP) Security and Risk Management Strategies team.
Anton is a recognized security expert in the field of log management, SIEM and PCI DSS compliance. Anton has published dozens of papers on log management, SIEM, correlation, security data analysis, PCI DSS, security management. His blog “Security Warrior” is one of the most popular in the industry.
25. Matthieu Suiche
Matthieu Suiche is a French hacker and entrepreneur widely known as the founder of MoonSols, and co-founder of CloudVolumes before it was acquired[1] by VMWare in 2014. In March 2014, Suiche was highlighted as one of the 100 key French developers in a report[2] for French minister Fleur Pellerin.
26. Per Thorsheim
Per Thorsheim has a self-described “insane” interest in passwords. As one of the world’s foremost security consultants focused solely on passwords, Per is the founder of PasswordsCon, the respected academic conference where international password security experts gather twice per year in Las Vegas and Europe.
27. Eric Vanderburg
Eric Vanderburg is a Christian cybersecurity leader, consultant, author, and thought leader. Vanderburg leads the cybersecurity consulting division at TCDI. TCDI’s cybersecurity division provides companies with peace of mind in our digital world by protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and critical systems. TCDI security practitioners, analysts, engineers and forensic investigators apply their unique skills to create confidence in your information systems and policies.
28. Nicolas Brulez
Nicolas Brulez joined Kaspersky Lab as a senior malware researcher in 2009. His responsibilities include analyzing malware and carrying out security research. Over the last 15 years, Nicolas has authored numerous articles and papers on reverse engineering. He is a regular speaker at computer engineering schools and international security conferences.
29. Dave Whitelegg
Dave Whitelegg is the founder of the IT Security Expert website. Dave has held the world’s leading Information Security Certification, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) by ISC2 for over 10 years, which broadly covers just about everything Information Security you can think of, from Biometrics to Encryption, from Legal compliance to Security Management and even Physical Security, a kind of jack of all trades of all aspects of Information Security.
30. Costin Raiu
Costin Raiu specializes in analyzing advanced persistent threats and high-level malware attacks. He leads the Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky that researched the inner workings of Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame, Gauss and more recently, Red October, MiniDuke and the Mask. Costin’s work includes analyzing malicious websites, exploits and online banking malware.
To make it easier for you to follow all these accounts, here is the list of Twitter handles:
@dannyjpalmer
@e_kaspersky
@taosecurity
@kevinmitnick
@evacide
@cbekrar
@josephsteinberg
@profwoodward
@iblametom
@sarasorcher
@gcluley
@whsaito
@dakami
@troyhunt
@kimzetter
@gattaca
@hackingdave
@joshcorman
@lennyzeltser
@security_faqs
@k8em0
@jwgoerlich
@viss
@anton_chuvakin
@msuiche
@thorsheim
@evanderburg
@nicolasbrulez
@securityexpert
@craiu
If you think we are missing anyone from this list, please comment below and let us know.
Check out our list of the top IoT Influencers here
