Mikko Hermanni Hyppönen (; born 13 October 1969) is a Finnish

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...

expert, speaker and author. He is known for the Hyppönen Law about IoT security, which states that whenever an appliance is described as being "smart", it is vulnerable. He works as the Chief Research Officer at WithSecure (former F-Secure for Business) and as the Principal Research Advisor at

F-Secure F-Secure Corporation is a global cyber security and privacy company, which has its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. The company has offices in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Swed ...

Career

Mikko Hyppönen has worked at F-Secure in Finland since 1991. Hyppönen has assisted law enforcement in the United States, Europe and Asia since the 1990s on cybercrime cases and advises governments on cyber crime. His team took down the

Sobig The Sobig Worm was a computer worm that infected millions of Internet-connected, Microsoft Windows computers in August 2003. Although there were indications that tests of the worm were carried out as early as August 2002, Sobig.A was first found ...

.F botnet. In 2004, Hyppönen cooperated with Vanity Fair on a feature, ''The Code Warrior'', which examined his role in defeating the Blaster and

Computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wi ...

s. Hyppönen has given keynotes and presentations at a number of conferences around the world, including

Black Hat Black hat, blackhats, or black-hat refers to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Black hat (computer security), a hacker who violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain * Black hat, part of black and whi ...

DEF CON DEF CON (also written as DEFCON, Defcon or DC) is a hacker convention held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first DEF CON took place in June 1993 and today many attendees at DEF CON include computer security professionals, journalists, lawyer ...

, DLD,

RSA RSA may refer to: Organizations Academia and education * Rabbinical Seminary of America, a yeshiva in New York City *Regional Science Association International (formerly the Regional Science Association), a US-based learned society *Renaissance S ...

, and V2 Security. In addition to data security events, Hyppönen has delivered talks at general-interest events, such as TED, TEDx, DLD,

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

, Slush and Google Zeitgeist. He's also spoken at various military events, including AFCEA events and the NATO CCD COE's ICCC. Hyppönen is a reserve officer in the Finnish Army. Hyppönen is a member of the advisory board of IMPACT (International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats) since 2007 together with Yevgeny Kaspersky, Hamadoun Touré, Fred Piper and

John Thompson John Thompson may refer to: Academics * J. A. Thompson (1913–2002), Australian biblical scholar * John D. Thompson (1917–1992), nurse and professor at the Yale School of Public Health * John G. Thompson (born 1932), American mathematician * ...

. Hyppönen is a columnist for BetaNews and Wired. He has also written on his research for CNN,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

and

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

. In 2011, he was ranked 61st in ''

Foreign Policy A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...

''s Top 100 Global Thinkers report. Hyppönen coined the term "Cybercrime Unicorns" to describe cybercrime organizations that are worth over a billion US dollars - a reference to Startup unicorns

Computer security history

Hyppönen made international news in 2011 when he tracked down and visited the authors of the first PC virus in history,

Brain The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head ( cephalization), usually near organs for special ...

. Hyppönen produced a documentary of the event. The documentary was published on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

. Hyppönen has also been documenting the rise of mobile phone malware since the first smartphone viruses were found. The

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

"News from the Lab", started by Hyppönen in 2004 was the first blog from any antivirus company. Hyppönen has been credited by Twitter for improving Twitter's security. Hyppönen has been the Curator for the Malware Museum at The Internet Archive since 2016. He published his first book in October 2021, and its English translation, ''If It's Smart, It's Vulnerable'', was published in June 2022.

References

External links

* * * *
"Fighting viruses, defending the net" (TEDGlobal 2011)
*
"Three types of online attack" (TEDxBrussels 2011)
** *
"How the NSA betrayed the world's trust — time to act" (TEDxBrussels 2013)

Cybercrime Unicorns
lecture at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

, April 2022 * Hyppönen and Nyman (2017)
The Internet of (Vulnerable) Things: On Hyppönen's Law, Security Engineering, and IoT Legislation
Technology Innovation Management Review, 7(4) 5–11.
References on Embassy cables
leaked by

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

* * * Jake Edge
Living with the surveillance state
a summary of Hyppönen's talk at LinuxCon Europe 2013. LWN.net * 10. April 2017, TTÜ Haridustehnoloogiakeskus
Public lecture by Mikko Hyppönen at Mektory
youtube.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Hypponen, Mikko 1969 births Living people Finnish computer programmers Chief technology officers of computer security companies

Career

Computer security history

See also

References

External links