This week’s list focuses on leaders confronting one of cybersecurity’s most urgent challenges, IMO: burnout, anxiety and depression driven by the pressures of the job.
From building frameworks to manage human risk and cognitive overload, to championing mental resilience, to stress-testing systems so practitioners aren’t constantly firefighting preventable crises, these five are helping reshape what sustainable security looks like.
They remind us that strong defenses don’t start with tools. They start with healthy, supported professionals.
Dr. Dustin Sachs
Dr. Dustin Sachs is a cybersecurity strategist and advisor focused on national security, emerging technology, and enterprise risk. He and I have worked together on several projects, and his latest venture, PsyberCog Labs, has the potential to reshape how organizations think about and manage human risk. Dustin was the guest of our most recent CYBR.SEC.CAST, which you can watch here:
, and CYBR.SEC.Media
Where to follow:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinsachs/
X (Twitter): @DustinSachs
Website: https://www.psybercog.com/
Amanda Berlin
Amanda Berlin is a long-time friend – a community builder who fuses technical credibility with honest conversations about burnout, leadership, and sustainability in security teams. She’s been a steady voice reminding the industry that strong programs require healthy people behind them. She is also the beating heart of Mental Health Hackers.
Where to follow:
X (Twitter): @infosystir
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandaberlin/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infosystir/
Peter Coroneos
Peter Coroneos is founder of Cybermindz and a global advocate for mental resilience in cybersecurity. He has helped move burnout and cognitive overload from private struggle to industry-level risk discussion, pushing leaders to treat mental health as a security priority. Full disclosure: I am a Cybermindz advisor and my conversations with Peter have been a game changer in terms of how I look at mental health in our industry.
Where to follow:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petercoroneos/
Website: https://www.cybermindz.org/
Bryson Bort
Bryson Bort is the founder of SCYTHE and a longtime leader in adversary emulation and industrial cybersecurity. I first met him during my time at IANS (he's on the faculty) and immediately saw him as a must-have speaker at IANS symposiums and forums. He has consistently championed realistic, offensive testing as the fastest way to mature defensive posture. He is one of the most powerful voices for protecting critical infrastructure through people and community as well as technology, and puts the need for mental wellbeing at the center of everything he does. When sought out for advice, he is honest and to the point. He is also an important connector of people, organizing security community dinners in whatever town he's visiting. I have personally benefitted from that.
Where to follow:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brysonbort/
X (Twitter): @brysonbort
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brysonbort/
Website: https://scythe.io/
Winn Schwartau
Winn Schwartau is a cybersecurity pioneer who has been writing about information warfare and infrastructure vulnerability since long before many of you were born! His early work helped frame cyber risk as a systemic, national issue — not just an IT problem. His work with the Cognitive Security Institute is helping to ensure, in the organization's words, that "the mind remains our greatest asset, not our greatest vulnerability." He has never let his legendary status go to his head. When you meet him, he's immediately friendly, and when he talks, you learn. I'm particularly grateful for his presence at Friday-afternoon Zoom happy hours that quite literally helped me through the pandemic.
Where to follow:
X (Twitter): https://x.com/winnschwartau
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/winnschwartau/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winnschwartau/
Website: https://www.winnschwartau.com/
