Influencers To Watch in 2022: Top 8 Cybersecurity Experts

How to become an authentication and cybersecurity specialist? By watching these top 8 cybersecurity influencers in 2022. Learn more here.

Nov 15, 2021 - 4 min.
Picture of: Branka Miljanovic
Branka Miljanovic

The more data there is, the greater the risk of hacker attacks – and the greater the need in companies for cybersecurity. In order to ensure that the benefits of digitalisation win out in the long term and companies are thoroughly protected against cyberattacks and unauthorised authentication, it’s vital to stay up-to-date and, among other things, keep current on the latest developments in passwordless authentication. What’s the simplest way to integrate trend-watching smoothly into your busy workday so you never miss the latest news? Easy: just watch these top 8 cybersecurity influencers, who Nevis ranks among the pioneers in the industry. They talk on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms every day about 2FA, MFA and e-ID – and they keep the conversation accessible and authentic. 

Although the term ‘influencer’ has been part of the English language for centuries, it has acquired a special meaning in recent years. But what do influencers actually do, and why are they also relevant in the B2B sector? Let’s start at the beginning. 

Influencers: sharing expertise with peers

Influencers are people who create their own content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and other social networks in which they share their personal experiences and opinions. This content is usually a combination of words and images or videos about certain topics and products. The influencers use this content to reach a particular target group and achieve the status of experts or digital opinion leaders. Accordingly, they enjoy a high degree of credibility that goes hand in hand with renown in their area of expertise. The result: influencers inform their community and, as the name says, can also influence them to a certain extent. This is the aspect that can be such a boon to marketing departments. Most influencers are members of the same social groups as their audiences, so they know these target groups like the back of their hand, understand the topics and can communicate with them authentically and as peers. When followers contact them through feedback channels in social networks, it reduces the distance to the expert and promotes dialogue.

Facts are gold in the B2B sector 

While influencer marketing is commonplace in B2C, there are not as many influencers in the B2B sector. This is not to say that B2B influencers are a rarity; in fact, they are increasingly helping to explain complex sets of facts that people would normally ask their friends or their network about. The main differences in comparison with the B2C sector are the intention and the needs associated with the B2B experts. Emotions are to B2C as facts are to B2B. Here, personal reputation, qualitative output and content relevance are paramount. 

The top 8 B2B influencers for 2022: a hacker’s nightmare

It is precisely this expertise that is so valuable in the IT security arena, as Nevis’ choice of the top 8 B2B influencers for 2022 proves. Some of them have spent decades working to improve the cybersecurity landscape. In addition to their ongoing interest in authentication options, the main priorities that they share are the development of security solutions to protect personal data and the desire to put a stop to hackers. How can you learn from your favourite expert, even in your private life? Thanks to podcasts, newsletters and Twitter, you’ll never miss a trend and always stay up to date with 2FA, e-ID and the rest.

  • Always hot on the trail of the latest security trend: Brian Krebs
    Brian Krebs is an independent investigative journalist in the U.S. and, with 337,045 Twitter followers, is considered the world’s best-known voice in cybersecurity. After launching his career as a reporter at the Washington Post in 1995, he had written more than 1,300 blog posts for the Security Fix blog by 2009. His own investigative blog KrebsonSecurity, which focuses chiefly on computer security and cybercrime, has already received 12 awards. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Spam Nation
  • The name, the law: Mikko Hyppönen
    Mikko Hyppönen has been working at F-Secure since 1991, but it was his loT law that catapulted him to fame outside of his native Finland: ‘Whenever an appliance is described as being “smart”, it is vulnerable’. According to this law, the weaknesses of smart devices are always associated with the fact that they were programmed by humans and are thus virtually impossible to eliminate. His article with this quote was published in the New York Times and Wired. The security expert with 216,862 Twitter followers now ranks among the established opinion leaders and is a popular guest professor at the elite Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge universities. 
  • Identifying hacks in seconds thanks to Troy Hunt
    As a renowned author and contributor to the Pluralsight web security courses, Troy Hunt from Australia is a regular speaker at tech conferences concerning cybersecurity. He is a Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for developer security. Widespread fame came to Hunt with his security blog ';--have i been pwned?, where he helps companies and private users discover whether their personal data have been stolen or manipulated by hackers. In 2018, the blog won the Grand Prix Prize for the Best Overall Security Blog. Hunt has nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter.
  • Bruce Schneier: security guru to the IT community 
    Dubbed a security guru by The Economist, Bruce Schneier is an internationally recognised security technologist with profound theoretical knowledge. He is a special advisor to IBM Security, a lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and a board member at EFF. On top of that, he has published a number of books about security, including the extremely popular Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World. On Twitter and his own blog, he reports regularly on security-related trends, reaching more than 130,000 people. 
  • Security tester for global companies: Daniel Miessler
    Daniel Miessler has been a security tester and advisor for leading companies for over 20 years. He focuses on the security of networks, web applications, and mobile and IoT systems in various industries, both in the private and international business arenas. Miessler is also the leader of the OWASP loT Security Project and speaks weekly on the Unsupervised Learning podcast. He has 118,327 Twitter followers. 
  • InfoSecurity Hall of Fame award winner: Graham Cluley 
    Award-winning keynote speaker Graham Cluley has been combatting cybercrime since the 1990s, which makes him a leader in the world of information security. Thanks to his expertise, he has worked with the biggest names in the security industry, including McAfee and Sophos. He is the head of InfoSec and was inducted into the InfoSecurity Europe Hall of Fame in 2011. Cluley now focuses on news about cybercrime and security topics from all over the world, reporting on channels like the Smashing Security podcast, which he co-hosts.
  • Shira Rubinoff: influential security expert 
    Shira Rubinoff is one of the most influential cybersecurity experts out there. She focuses on the intersection between technology, psychology and cybersecurity. She also wears a number of hats: Rubinoff has founded two cybersecurity product companies and led several projects for women in tech, and she is a cybersecurity and blockchain consultant. Not only that – she is also president of the New York City-based technology incubator Prime Tech Partners and the social-media-security firm SecureMySocial. Most recently, the CyberHub Summit named her ‘Outstanding Woman in Infosec’. 
  • Ambassador for the GDPR Awareness Coalition: Brian Honan
    Brian Honan has been working in technology for over 30 years, ten of them in information security. The internationally recognised cybersecurity expert is the founder and head of Ireland’s Computer Security Incident Response team and a former special advisor on cybersecurity to Europol. He actively leverages his experience to bring about significant change in the security industry, including in his role as GDPR Awareness Coalition ambassador. More than 35,000 people follow him on Twitter.

Cybercrime: How to Protect Your Business