5. HP’s Ian Pratt

There are a lot of institutions that face ransomware attacks. However, when they involve football, people really begin to panic. That’s what happened when the BlackByte ransomware gang launched a ransomware attack against the San Francisco 49ers, claiming it stole some of the football team’s financial data.

But have no fear, because people like Ian Pratt are in charge. He’s global head of security for personal systems at HP. He commented in Channel Futures this week about criminals being supported by a sophisticated underground supply chain. He said it’s vital to limit the impact of a breach by building resilience in from the hardware up.

“By adopting zero-trust principles, organizations can mitigate risk by securing critical systems, based on principles of least privilege, strong identity, mandatory access control and strong isolation,” Pratt said.

However, did BlackByte actually hack into the 49ers? Find out more.