Cyber Security Influencer of the Year.
Some practitioners change one team. A few change how a whole field thinks. This category honours the people whose voice carries beyond their own desk, and the panel weighs what that voice actually moved.
The 2026 Influencer of the Year
Paul Jackson was named Cyber Security Influencer of the Year in 2026. Now CEO of THEOS Cyber and based in Hong Kong, he has spent more than thirty years in digital forensics and incident response, including twenty-two years with the Hong Kong Police Force and senior roles at JPMorgan Chase and Kroll. His influence shows in the practitioners he has trained and the response work he has guided across the region.
A decade of winners sits in the Hall of Fame.
What the panel scores against
Influence is the hardest of the individual categories to judge well, because it is the easiest to fake. A large audience is not the test. The panel reads for the trail a nominee leaves in other people's work. Did a piece of research change how teams approach a problem? Did a talk or a piece of writing send someone back to patch something, brief a board, or rethink a control?
Three things carry weight. The first is original contribution, work that adds to what the field knows rather than restating it. The second is reach that lands, an audience who acted, not just watched. The third is generosity, the habit of explaining clearly so that people with less experience can follow. The strongest nominations show all three, and they show them with evidence anyone can check.
What a winning record looks like
A winning record reads like a record of usefulness. The nominee published, spoke or taught, and you can point to the people and teams who do their job differently as a result. The change is traceable to them, and it reaches past their own employer.
Weak nominations measure the wrong thing. They count followers, conference slots and reposts, and stop there. The panel reads past the metrics and looks for the moment a practitioner somewhere defended better because this person made the work clearer.
Earlier holders of this category
The Influencer honour has a longer history than the 2026 line-up suggests. Dr Franck Courbon of Cambridge and Ethicronics held it in 2025. Tarnveer Singh took it in 2023, and Jay Hira in 2022, the same year he was also named Cyber Personality of the Year. Clement Arul of Cybertronium held it in 2021. In 2020 a related honour, Cloud Security Influencer of the Year, went to Andy Green of Gemserv. Read the full list in the Hall of Fame.
Cyber Security Influencer of the Year
Who can be nominated as Cyber Security Influencer?
Anyone whose research, teaching, writing or speaking has changed how others in the field work, with evidence of that change beyond their own organisation. Audience size is not the test; impact is.
Is this category about social media following?
No. The panel scores original contribution, reach that prompts action, and clear, generous explanation. A large following with no traceable effect on practice does not win.
When was the category introduced in its current form?
The Influencer honour has run for several editions. In the 2026 restructure it became one of five individual categories, alongside five organisational ones.
Who won Cyber Security Influencer of the Year in 2026?
Paul Jackson, CEO of THEOS Cyber, recognised for more than three decades in digital forensics, cyber investigation and incident response across Asia-Pacific.
Who held the category before 2026?
Recent holders include Dr Franck Courbon in 2025, Tarnveer Singh in 2023, Jay Hira in 2022 and Clement Arul in 2021. The full record is in the Hall of Fame.