2015 has been a big year for cyber security, and 2016 promises even more of the same. Here is who you need to keep an eye on in the year to come.

 

1. Peter Clarke

A few weeks ago Clarke, by his own admission, had just "a GCSE and a few Microsoft qualifications in my back pocket". Then he won the UK’s second Cyber Security Challenge Masterclass run by the likes of GCHQ and the NCA.

During the challenge he had to stop a simulated attack against the Royal Family, and after his success the 38 year old networking engineer’s desired career move into cyber security has been given an almighty boost for 2016.

 

Katie Moussouris – HackerOne

Having pushed Microsoft to launch a bug bounty programme, Moussouris is now at San Francisco firm HackerOne where she helps researchers who want to report bugs negotiate with firms.

HackerOne has already helped deal with bugs affecting Yahoo, Dropbox, WordPress, and Twitter, and given we are hardly likely to see a decline in malware discovery in 2016, Moussouris could be very busy indeed as she tries to prove fixing bugs can be more profitable than selling them on the dark web.

 

Jerome Segura – Malwarebytes:

Segura’s team has made some big discoveries this year, including attack on the official Premier League fantasy football game, and the Readers Digest website. Segura has been very active on malvertising, an area of malware that is growing rapidly.

He told CBR that in the coming 12 months he will be watching for stealthier malvertising leveraging new mediums and zero day exploits hastening the inevitable demise of Flash. He also thinks that users will demand compensation or walk away from firms on the back of cyber attacks, which will be increasingly hard to keep up with.You can be sure he’ll be trying to keep up with them though.

 

Joe Sullivan – Uber

Sullivan was the ride sharing firm’s first Chief Security Officer, appointed in April this year. The firm has already suffered a much breach, and is consequently beefing up its security efforts. As well as knowing they are safe in the car, Uber users want to know their data, which includes home addresses, is safe when they get out, and that’s what Sullivan needs to keep proving in the year to come.

Sullivan came from Facebook, and has previously worked at e-bay, but with the spotlight on Uber like never before this may be his biggest challenge yet.

 

Shannon Praylow – Maverick Cyber Defense

Praylow has a growing reputation in the cyber security industry, having won praise for the various US government agencies including departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and Statet. She’s been in cyber security for over eight years now, gaining practical experience instead of a college degree.

Based at Maverick cyber Defense, whose client base focuses on government departmetns, she is likely to be a star in 2016 and beyond.