03.16.07

Top 59 Influencers in IT Security (2007)

Posted in IT, Security at 8:06 pm by Tyler Reguly

I've already mentioned this list once and said I disagreed with a good chunk of it... I also said that I'd come back with my own list. This is exactly what I've done... Ryan (numerophobe.com), Jeremy (engineeringreversed.com) and I sat down and came up with this list. We basically decided that the original list should have been 64 (seems like a more "computerized" number)... So in keeping with the semi-fictional list that IT Security provided, we came up with the following five additions:

  1. Acid Burn - Angelina Jolie made all little boys fall in love with computers.
  2. Matthew Broderick - For making us want to skip school and hack things.
  3. RoboCop - Made us want to protect the world...
  4. Al Gore - For Inventing and Fathering the Internet
  5. Zero Cool - He kissed Angelina Jolie

I hope that made everyone smile... Now we've come up with an actual list. These are people who have blogs that we feel are worth reading (because we learn something when we do or, at the very least, they are informative), developers of software that drives security, and individuals who have earned a name for themselves with interesting research and are still around with something informative to say.

I'm numbering this list, not to signify importance but to make this distinction... Numbers 1 - 27 were decided upon by all of us... the remaining numbers I added after the fact, we either forgot to add them or they came to mind afterward.

  1. Joanna Rutkowska
  2. David Litchfield
  3. Jeremiah Grossman
  4. RSnake
  5. HD Moore
  6. Anton Chuvakin
  7. Matasano Team
  8. Bruce Schneier
  9. Richard Bejtlich
  10. SecuriTeam
  11. Emergent Chaos
  12. Alex Eckleberry
  13. Mark Russinovich
  14. TAOSSA
  15. Cesar Cerrudo
  16. Dave Aitel
  17. David Maynor
  18. Dave Korn
  19. Ilfak Guilfanov (DataRescue)
  20. Halvar Flake (Sabre Labs, Sabre Security)
  21. Pedram Amini
  22. NVD
  23. Mitre
  24. Michael Sutton
  25. Fyodor
  26. Mike Rothman
  27. Peter Ferrie
  28. skape
  29. spoonm
  30. Mutz / Max
  31. DVD Jon
  32. Ero Carrera Ventura

I've been following the comments over at Matasano and I realize that Thomas doesn't think they belong in any sort of list... but I beg to differ... The Matasano blog is usually one of my favourite reads of the day. Anyways, we just wanted to share the list.

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5 Comments »

  1. anon said,

    March 17, 2007 at 7:46 pm

    Why do people continue to sensationalize Joanna’s findings? I dont find them a big deal. There mostly impractical and common sense (firewire thing). I wish people would stop wooing over her. Its certainly getting old.

  2. Tyler Reguly said,

    March 17, 2007 at 9:46 pm

    Let’s see… Red Pill, Blue Bill, Subverting the Vista Kernel for fun and Profit, Defeating hardware-based RAM acquisition tools and many other things.. Plenty of great research… And you choose to come here and anonymously insult her work? You don’t even have the balls to identify yourself? That’s just pathetic. Well you’re a Road Runner customer in Carolina for anyone who thinks they might have an idea of who you are…

    Yet that one word sums it up so nicely… Pathetic.

  3. anon said,

    March 18, 2007 at 11:36 am

    i apologise HTregz. My comment came out completely wrong. What i had meant to say was that the media sensationalized a lot of the stories, where i think other researchers were doing much more interesting things.

  4. Internet Security and Programming » Blog Archive » Top 59 Influencers in IT Security (2007) said,

    March 19, 2007 at 5:03 am

    [...] category News. You can read any responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can give a response, or trackback from your site. « Google Search Reveals Thousands of Hacked Websites How to:USB Stick -Install a full bootable version of BackTrack2 on a 1G USB Stick » [...]

  5. What’s It Worth? Your Data, Your Blog, Yourself. | RiskAnalys.is said,

    March 19, 2007 at 8:39 am

    [...] Finally, Big4Guy gives us How to Audit Spreadsheets for Section 404 Compliance.   I like the Big4Guy site quite a lot.  Sure, it’s SOX, and it’s dry, but let me explain. You see, he’s down and dirty about what to do and how to do it.  He’s not navel gazing about the relative importance of himself or his purpose in life.  He’s just given us “how it is and how you ought to do it.”  Got to respect that. [...]

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