Top 5 Cybersecurity Innovators 2024

1. Melih Abdulhayoğlu

Turkish-born American inventor and entrepreneur, Melih Abdulhayoğlu comes in at number one on the list. Since building his first electronic circuit at age 9, Melih has been on a mission to innovate and help people. After graduating from the University of Bradford with a degree in electrical engineering, Melih discovered a passion for internet security and founded cybersecurity firm Comodo Group in 1998. Over the next twenty years, Comodo, under Melih’s continued leadership, became a major innovator in the cybersecurity field, revolutionizing endpoint security with its containment technology. In 2005, Melih founded the Certification Authority Browser Forum (CA/B Forum), which publishes guidelines for browsers and SSL certificate authorities, and in 2009, he founded the Common Computing Security Standards Forum (CCSS), which maintains a list of trusted consumer AV providers.

2. Marcin Kleczynski

Polish-American entrepreneur Marcin Kleczynski founded cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes in 2008, at age 18. Kleczynski started his career by creating an innovative virus-removal software, which fought against fake antivirus software that scammed users into giving their sensitive data to cybercriminals. Today, Malwarebytes is a multimillion dollar company with offices around the world.

In 2014, Marcin won the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2015 Forbes Magazine’s named Marcin one of the 30 Under 30 Rising Stars of Enterprise Technology

3. Chris Young

Chris Young has been the CEO of McAfee since 2017. Under his leadership, McAfee has grown to protect systems for over 2/3 of the global Forture 2000 companies. Globally, McAfee is one of the most trusted cybersecurity corporations, with over 400 million consumer users.

Chris Young is a prominent voice on cybersecurity, speaking on some of the largest tech and cybersecurity stages around the world, including RSA, Cyber Week, and Mobile World Congress. He also sits on the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, advising the US government on national security concerns.

4. Ken Xie

Ken Xie is a Chinese-American engineer and entrepreneur, who has been a cybersecurity leader for over 25 years. In 1993, Xie founded network security company Systems Integration Solutions (SIS). Three years later, he founded security firm NetScreen Technologies, which was later sold to Juniper Networks Inc. for $4 billion. In 2000, Xie founded Fortinet, quickly growing the company to become one of the biggest players in the enterprise and consumer cybersecurity fields.

In 2006, Xie was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner for Northern California. In 2013, he was made a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2013. In 2014 and again in 2017, Xie was named a Top 25 Innovator by CRN Magazine.

5. Kevin Mandia

Kevin Mandia is an American entrepreneur who founded cybersecurity firm Mandiant in 2004. Mandiant gained international attention in February 2013, when it released evidence of cyber attacks by the Chinese army on at least 141 organizations in the United States and other Anglosphere countries.

In December 2013, Mandiant was acquired by FireEye for over $1 billion, and Mandia was named Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, later become CEO in June 2019. Under Mandia’s leadership, FireEye has seen rapid growth and made headlines for identifying several major vulnerabilities and malware variants.