Cyber security is an evolving industry. With the growth of blockchain and an influx of experts who have been learning and experimenting for years, it’s time for a shake up. We’re sharing which InfoSec experts to watch in 2018 — and why you should keep an eye on what they’re up to.
Dan Guido, CEO of Trail of Bits
Dan Guido is not just the CEO of Trail of Bits, helping to secure “the world’s most targeted organizations and products.” He’s also deeply involved in the developer and security world as the organizer for Empire Hacking and director of Hack/Secure, a company that invests in early-stage cyber security companies.
If you want to learn more about the new world of cyber security, and the organizations who are pushing innovation and technology, follow him on Twitter (@DanGuido) — his daily tweets provide insight on what’s happening now and what to look for in the future.
Fun fact: Guido is a budding philanthropist. He also made a goal in 2017 to give $12K to charity, and now he’s tweeting about where that money went:
Jordan Wiens, Co-Founder Vector 35, Developer for Binary Ninja
The first thing you need about Wiens is that he won 1.25 million frequent flier miles in 2015 with United Airlines. Why? “Wiens was one of two hackers United recently rewarded with a million free miles of air travel for discovering and alerting the company to software defects through the airlines “bug bounty” program,” according to the Washington Post.
That’s not all; he won another quarter million miles for reporting another defect for the airline.
Needless to say, his hacking skills have taken him to some interesting places, and he’s tried his hand at many roles in the technology community: “I am or have been a reverse engineer, vulnerability researcher, shellcoder, IDS monkey, incident handler, policy developer, security architect, forensic analyst, instructor, presenter, penetration tester, CTF player, CTF organizer, infosec manager, mentor, and hacker,” as he explains on his LinkedIn profile.
Now, he’s focused on making our lives easier with Vector 35, which focuses on security research, video game development and security gamification. He and his group at Vector 35 have also developed Binary Ninja, a reverse engineering platform.
Moxie Marlinspike, Creator of Signal
Search “Moxie Marlinspike” on Google and you’ll be served a wide range of articles from some of the biggest industry publishers, including Wired and TechCrunch. Marlinspike has been a heavy-hitter in the cyber security industry for many years and his love-hate relationship for technology makes him a unique personality in our crowded digital world:
“I like computer security and software development, particularly in the areas of secure protocols, cryptography, privacy, and anonymity. But I also secretly hate technology, am partially horrified with the direction ‘geek’ culture has gone, and have little affection for the weird entrepreneur scene that’s currently devouring the Bay Area,” he shares on his website.
Yet, he continues to innovate. His newest project, Signal, has one simple goal: to bring end-to-end encrypted chat to the masses: “Marlinspike designed Signal to bring uncrackable encryption to regular people. And though he hadn’t yet revealed it at the time of the conference in March, Signal’s encryption protocol had been integrated into WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app, with over a billion users,” reported Wired.
If you want to get to know Marlinspike on a more personal level, head to the “Stories” section of his website, where he shares personal anecdotes and experiences.
Steve Bassi, CEO PolySwarm
Steve Bassi is the CEO of PolySwarm, and his love for technology, hacking and cyber security started many years ago. He told Techbullion:
“When I was about 11 or 12, I hacked into a local company. They caught me and instead of getting really mad, they said come work for us. So I did and was lucky to have really great technical mentors at a young age — I’ve always been interested in security since its really about understanding the unintended consequences of what we as a society build: software, airports, spaceships, whatever. Those things are incredibly complex and understanding what may break inside their designs fascinates me.”
In his career, he’s been a computer scientist for Naval Research Laboratory, Director of Technical Security Services for Poseidon Research Japan Co Ltd, and Co-Founder of Narf Industries.
Most recently he co-founded PolySwarm, a decentralized threat intelligence marketplace that uses the blockchain to “crowdsource” cyber security. The platform is the first of its kind, and came out of the frustration Steve and other members of Narf Industries had with the cyber security industry. Now, PolySwarm is on its way to an ICO and worldwide distribution.
David Brumley, CEO and Co-Founder of ForAllSecure
David Brumley is currently CEO of For All Secure, a technology that makes it easier for defenders to find vulnerabilities. But that’s not all — he’s taught NSA hackers, and is the Director of CMU CybLab and Bosch Professor of Security and Privacy. He’s also authored and co-authored a number of academic papers since his time as a student at Carnegie Mellon.
Check out his thoughts on “Securing Every Program in the World” in this video from 2015 to learn a little more about this big player in cyber security.
Ainsley Braun, CEO and Co-Founder of Tinfoil Security
Ainsley Braun is a double major MIT Alumni focused on helping businesses monitor their website for vulnerabilities. The work that’s done at Tinfoil has been dubbed, “hacking for good” and started in 2011, in Boston.
Braun and her co-founder, fellow MIT graduate Michael Borohovski, won the $100,000 MassChallenge startup competition grand prize, which was enough to get them to Silicon Valley, where Ainsley has been focused on bringing security to businesses that are otherwise vulnerable on a daily basis.
Outside of cyber security, she’s spends time volunteering for Humane Society Silicon Valley, 500 Startups and StartX. As a female in a male-dominated world, she’s definitely someone to keep your eye on.
Jon Oberheide, CTO and Co-Founder of Duo
Jon was named on Forbes’ list of 30 under 30 in Tech, and his gig as CTO and Co-Founder of Duo is not his first stab at entrepreneurship in the cyber security world. He was also the founder of ARBSEC, a security meet-up in Ann Arbor that’s meant to help security professionals meet and talk outside of stuffy conferences.
Now, Oberheide and his team at Duo are helping app developers create safer, more secure access to their various products with 2-factor authentication and secure single sign-on. Their work is critical as businesses continue to need greater user security. As such, they’re already working with well-known brands such as Kayak, Etsy, Facebook and University of Michigan Medical School.
Want to learn more about Oberheide? Get more insight on his personal blog and check out a recent talk at USENIX Enigma 2016.
Zuk Avraham, Founder and Chairman at Zimperium
Zuk Avraham is a busy security expert, currently working as CEO and Founder of ZecOpps while also holding his position at Zimperium, where he was CEO for four years (from 2010 to 2014). His first company, Zimperium is focused on building advanced threat detection tools for mobile devices, while his newest venture, ZecOpps, a reverse bounty platform that’s still in Beta. (Want to keep up with what they’re doing? Sign up to get your invite.)
