7. Ian Usher

Ransomware attacks jumped almost 93% year over year. Attacks totaled nearly 2,700, compared to fewer than 1,400 in 2020.

The NCC Group’s Ian Usher made our list this week for his insights into Conti, a Russia-based global threat actor, who represented 18% of all ransomware attacks.

Usher said of the group: “What we identified was an operation being run very much like a business enterprise, with thorough recruitment and training processes. This material did not reveal any novel techniques or procedures, so the prominence can only really be attributed to the scale of the operation, which is made possible by the business model.”

His perspective couldn’t be timelier.

To read more from Edward Gately’s story, link here.