Written by David Roberts
Reviewed by Lucas Walter
Updated
The top cybersecurity influencers in 2026 are Scammer Payback, Low Level, Mental Outlaw, David Bombal, and The PC Security Channel. This list ranks 29 cybersecurity influencers by median views across their recent posts, not by follower count. Each one was found by searching across hundreds of thousands of top-performing posts in the cybersecurity niche.
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All 29 are listed in rank order. Select a row to jump to the write-up.
| Rank | Creator | Followers | Median views | Engagement | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scammer Payback @ScammerPayback | 9.5M | 513K | 2.6% | Scam-baiting call centers |
| 2 | Low Level @LowLevelTV | 1.2M | 341K | 2.1% | Fresh bugs, explained in code |
| 3 | Mental Outlaw @MentalOutlaw | 799K | 169K | 3.6% | Breaches and big-tech fights |
| 4 | David Bombal @davidbombal | 3.1M | 126K | 0.9% | Interviews with hackers and vendors |
| 5 | The PC Security Channel @pcsecuritychannel | 646K | 97.6K | 4.7% | Malware run on test machines |
| 6 | Khanjicyber @khanjicyber | 53.9K | 88.7K | 4.2% | Spyware and forensics, explained fast |
| 7 | CyberFlow @cyberflow10 | 429K | 77.4K | 4.5% | Hacking basics for beginners |
| 8 | Caitlin Sarian @cybersecuritygirl | 2.2M | 59.6K | 2.3% | Phone settings and scam warnings |
| 9 | Rob Braxman Tech @robbraxmantech | 754K | 49K | 4.1% | De-Googled phones and self-hosting |
| 10 | Sandra @cyberwithsandra | 129K | 42.9K | 4.7% | SOC humor and career advice |
| 11 | Naomi Brockwell @nbtv.media | 265K | 32.5K | 5.7% | De-Googling and everyday privacy |
| 12 | Sasha @cyber_sasha_ | 109K | 30.1K | 3% | One security term per Reel |
| 13 | micah.tech @micah.tech | 16.2K | 26.4K | 4.4% | Debloating TVs and phones |
| 14 | Sarvesh Murali @myfirsthack | 189K | 20K | – | Entry-level SOC analyst roadmaps |
| 15 | Abed Hamdan @unixguycyber | 143K | 19.1K | 1.8% | First-job coaching and cert rankings |
| 16 | wassimcti @wassimcti | 32.7K | 18.5K | 6.1% | One hack per video, actor named |
| 17 | Marcus Hutchins @MalwareTechBlog | 278K | 17.9K | 1.7% | Correcting overstated hack headlines |
| 18 | Tech In Her Step @techinherstep | 182K | 16.9K | 3.4% | Phone safety without the jargon |
| 19 | Rachel Tobac @RachelTobac | 117K | 16.3K | 1.2% | Why social-engineering attacks work |
| 20 | Mad Hat @madhatistaken | 199K | 14.8K | 4% | Career coaching from a cloud engineer |
| 21 | IRL Rosie @irlrosie | 1.3M | 14.7K | 5.4% | Granny-voice calls to scammers |
| 22 | John Hammond @_JohnHammond | 2.2M | 14.1K | 1.7% | Exploits and payloads, in short clips |
| 23 | DES | GovTech @cyberdest | 8K | 12.4K | 6.4% | First cyber job, certs, and salaries |
| 24 | Ben Sadeghipour @NahamSec | 255K | 12.3K | 1.3% | Bug bounty and AI hackbots |
| 25 | The Social Dork @thesocialdork1133 | 66.5K | 12.1K | 2.9% | Home labs that lead to a job |
| 26 | log4j @log4j | 28.6K | 11.8K | 2.9% | Live-tweeted reverse engineering |
| 27 | Techlore @techlore | 317K | 11.4K | 3.2% | Privacy news and digital rights |
| 28 | tej @notadeepfake | 18K | 10.8K | 7.3% | One privacy move per video |
| 29 | Troy Hunt @troyhunt | 257K | 10.3K | 0.4% | Breach postmortems |
The best cybersecurity influencers aren’t simply the accounts with the most followers. YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram all show posts to people based on how the post performs individually, not just based on who follows the creator. As a result, a small or midsized account can reach more people than one several times its size.
That’s why we rank cybersecurity influencers by median views of their posts (the average number of people a typical post reaches). As of November 2026, the five most watched are Scammer Payback, Low Level, Mental Outlaw, David Bombal, and The PC Security Channel.
Grouped by who watches, since a learner, a practitioner, and a worried parent buy different products. The number beside each name is the creator’s overall rank.
Nine accounts that tell practitioners what just broke. They suit threat-intelligence, endpoint, and code-security products.
Talking-head explainers on newly disclosed bugs, with the code and exploit detail on screen. Also reverse-engineers viral tools to test their claims.
15 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in code review tools, threat intelligence, penetration testing, code security, and password managers.
Single-host commentary over screen captures and news screenshots, 10 to 20 minutes long. Breaches, bug disclosures, and arguments with big tech over Linux and privacy.
No sponsored videos found in the last 90 days.
Malware teardowns and antivirus tests on the host’s own test machines, including a “most dangerous malware of today” series. Threat-news episodes run alongside.
8 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in malware sandboxes, endpoint security, threat intelligence, and anti-detect browsers.
Green-screen news explainers built on leaked documents and lab tests, with fast voice-over over screenshots. Phone and laptop extraction, spyware, breach news, and privacy hardening.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Chest-up news explainers from an Army veteran, each walking through one breach, arrest, or malware family with the actor named. Almost no tutorials.
4 sponsored posts in the last 90 days, in remote-access software.
Rapid commentary on breach news and exploit claims, often correcting overstated headlines. Explains what attacks cost and how threat actors work as businesses.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Breaks down social-engineering attacks and AI impersonation from the defender’s side, from the CEO of a security-awareness company. Explains why each pretext works and what it costs the target.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Live-tweets reverse-engineering findings in a clipped first-person voice, most recently a root shell and telemetry on a smart TV. Also tests open-weight models for exploitation work.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Breach postmortems and skeptical reads of security hype, on a weekly video and blog schedule. Founder of a data-breach search service.
4 sponsored posts in the last 90 days, in endpoint and AI-agent security.
Hands-on lessons, interviews, and bug-hunting notes for people building skills. A fit for training platforms and security tools.
Conference-floor interviews with researchers, vendors, and hackers, cut into 8- to 20-minute explainers and daily vertical clips. Recent runs cover AI-agent security, phone tracking, and ransomware crews.
61 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in endpoint security, VPNs and password managers, data removal, network security, and AI computing.
Screen-recorded tutorials on Linux, networking, malware analysis, and hacking tools, with a “learn X for hackers” series. Fast, profane, and aimed at beginners.
No sponsored videos found in the last 90 days.
Short explainer clips on exploits and payloads, cut from longer streams, from a researcher at a security company. Also runs a Minecraft series used as a security lab.
7 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in threat intelligence, application security, password management, compliance software, and AI sandboxes.
Bug-bounty field notes and AI “hackbots” built for recon and exploitation, with reports on what the models missed. Also organizes a hacking conference.
1 sponsored post in the last 90 days, in AI red-team challenges.
Home-lab build tutorials at a desk and in a terminal: firewalls, SIEM tools, and cloud labs, each tied to getting hired. Shorts are day-in-the-life clips from a cybersecurity manager.
6 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in home-lab hardware, application security, AI coding tools, and AI note-taking devices.
Working security staff who explain how to get hired. Their followers are students and career changers.
To-camera Reels at a desk and short office sketches, from a self-described cyber practitioner. Careers, certification quiz gags, and incident-response humor.
3 sponsored posts in the last 90 days, in application security and AI-agent security.
To-camera Reels from a desk and work trips, plus a numbered series that explains one security term per episode. Career stories from a security engineer.
6 sponsored posts in the last 90 days, in learning apps, AI apps, and privacy apps.
Music-led Reels with on-screen text and no narration, from a senior cybersecurity consultant. Roadmaps, tier lists, and portfolio templates for a first SOC analyst job.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Straight-to-camera clips, many cut from a podcast, plus conference vox pops that quiz security pros. Breaking into the field, certification rankings, and interview tactics, under the name UnixGuy.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Desk-and-slides career coaching, plus cloud-security and breach commentary, from a working cloud security engineer. Shorts are single-tip clips.
1 sponsored video in the last 90 days, in endpoint security.
Slideshows and short talks on certs, salary ladders, resumes, and clearance questions, from someone working in government cyber. Recurring series: starting cybersecurity from zero.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Settings, debloating, and tools for people who distrust big tech. A fit for VPNs and password managers.
Long single-host explainers with screen recordings and home-lab builds, from a former chief software architect. Big-tech data collection, de-Googled phones, Linux, and self-hosting.
No sponsored videos found in the last 90 days.
Weekly clips from a privacy show: to-camera pieces and short skits on de-Googling a phone, burner numbers, and smart devices at home. The show runs as a nonprofit project.
No sponsored posts found in the last 90 days.
Fast captioned screen recordings of device menus, each with an all-caps hook. Debloating smart TVs and phones, tracking settings, VPN choice, and open-source alternatives.
3 sponsored posts in the last 90 days, in online marketplaces and design software.
Weekly news and analysis on privacy, surveillance, and digital rights, hosted by Henry Fisher at a desk. Tool walk-throughs and founder interviews run between the news.
10 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in crypto wallets, data removal, email aliases, and privacy suites.
To-camera explainers with a settings page or a real breach notice on screen, from a software engineer at a security startup. Each post teaches one consumer-privacy move.
1 sponsored post in the last 90 days, in AI code review.
The widest general audience here, watching for scams or for fun. A fit for consumer security products.
Remote-access scam-baiting from a hacker persona: taking over scammers’ machines and exposing call centers. Each long video also gets cut into Shorts.
9 sponsored videos in the last 90 days, in identity protection, VPNs, data removal, antivirus, and remote desktop software.
To-camera Reels and screen recordings at a desk and at vendor conferences: breaking cyber news, phone-settings walk-throughs, and scam warnings. Runs a daily series on locking down an online life.
12 sponsored posts in the last 90 days, in security software, identity management, IT distribution, data removal, payments, network security, and eyewear.
Talking-head explainers over screen recordings of phone settings from a home office, often answering comments on an earlier tip. Anti-theft settings, app permissions, password managers, and scam protection.
1 sponsored post in the last 90 days, in identity protection.
Phone-call pranks in a recurring “granny” voice from a voice actor, with the scammer heard through the handset. Most posts are scam-baiting; the rest are general pranks and promos.
1 sponsored post in the last 90 days, in jewelry.
We analyzed the 487 posts these 29 creators published on YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram in the last 30 days. Of those, 88 beat their creator’s usual views by 3× or more.
Here is how this month’s breakouts open, read from what each post says in its first seconds, or from its caption or first line when nobody speaks.
“Your iPhone is always listening to you and giving transcripts.”
These videos say what is already wrong before they say anything else: a phone that listens, a bug that is the worst case, a course that wastes your money. The same creators rarely open a usual post this way.
Caitlin Sarian 1.5M views · 25.2× their usualThe danger has to be the viewer’s own. A vendor brief that opens on the product loses what makes this opening work, so ask the creator to start from the risk and bring the product in as the fix.
“Binance is likely in the midst of a multi billion dollar hack right now”
News openings are the usual format for these accounts, so the opening alone did not make these posts break out. The size of the event did: a large theft, a seized domain, and a web bug that many of these creators covered in the same week.
wassimcti 111K views · 6× their usualOn X nobody speaks, and the first line does the same job. Most of the X breakouts this month came from one reverse engineer live-posting one smart-TV finding, which is a series and not a pattern to copy. For a sponsor, the lesson is timing: a slot booked weeks ago can land beside whatever breaks that day.
“Alright, if you use Spotify, I’m gonna show you how to turn off all data collection on the app.”
These posts open on a named app, then a promise to fix it in a minute. Two consumer accounts supply all of these, half each, so this is a habit of the privacy and safety side of the niche more than of security creators in general.
micah.tech 122K views · 4.6× their usualThese posts name the viewer in the first words (“if you use,” “if your kid has”). A consumer security product can borrow that shape directly: the app or device first, then the setting, then the product for what the setting cannot do.
log4j: “i own a relatively new (2025) samsung tv” reached 4.8M views, 410.4× their usual.
Tech In Her Step: “Worried about your iPhone being stolen? Here’s a simple iPhone hack using the Shortcuts app to protect your phone” reached 1M views, 60.3× their usual.
tej: “People are using AI to hack the ads and tracking off their TVs and honestly I love it, but these are just essential things you need to know so you don’t accidentally break your TV” reached 221K views, 20.6× their usual.
This table shows what the cybersecurity accounts on this list do at each size on YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram. Use it to judge whether a creator’s numbers are strong for their tier.
| Tier | Followers | Median views | Engagement | Posts a week | Sponsored posts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | Under 100K | 12.4K | 4.4% | 2.6 | 5% |
| Mid | 100K to 500K | 17.9K | 3.1% | 2.8 | 7% |
| Macro | Over 500K | 97.6K | 2.6% | 2.1 | 41% |
The figures are medians across these 29 accounts, from each account’s recent posts. “Sponsored posts” is the share of posts in the 90 days to Nov 2, 2026, that carry a paid-partnership or paid-promotion label or a stated sponsor, or are part of a brand campaign.
If you market a security product, first decide whether you need the people who buy it, the people learning the field, or the public it protects.
A career channel’s followers are students, so it can sell a certification or a lab but rarely an enterprise contract. A news account read by working analysts is closer to a buyer, and a scam-baiting channel reaches households. Read the comments on a few recent posts to see who is really there.
Security people are quick to call out creators who oversell the field, and they check credentials. Find out whether a creator holds a job in security, held one, or learned in public. All three can work, but the claim you ask them to make has to fit the answer.
Open the descriptions of their last ten videos. Some channels here run a sponsor on most uploads, often several vendors from the same category over a few weeks. That proves they deliver, and it also means your message sits next to a rival’s.
This audience trusts a demo over a script. Creators who run malware on a test machine or try to break a tool will do the same to yours, so send a product that can survive it, and agree in advance what happens if it does not.
Many sponsor mentions in this niche are only a link and a code in a description, with no ad words. The FTC says creators should disclose any financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with a brand, so write the wording and the placement into the deal.
We identified and ranked these creators by searching hundreds of thousands of top-performing cybersecurity posts across YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram with Klint.
We rank by median views across each creator’s recent posts, so one viral post can’t lift an account up the list. Creators from any country qualify if they post in English, most of their recent posts teach or report security, and a typical post reaches at least 10,000 views.
To get this list or a similar one for yourself, describe the creators you’re looking for in the Klint web app, or paste this prompt into any AI agent connected to Klint:
Find the top 29 cybersecurity influencers on YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram. Rank by median views across their last 30 posts or their last 90 days, whichever is lower. Show followers, engagement, and sponsors.
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As of November 2026 the top five cybersecurity influencers by median views are Scammer Payback, Low Level, Mental Outlaw, David Bombal, and The PC Security Channel.
For the general public, Scammer Payback (9.5M subscribers) and Caitlin Sarian (2.2M followers) reach the most people. Among practitioners, Marcus Hutchins and Troy Hunt are the familiar names on X. Chief security officers who post mainly on LinkedIn are not measured here.
This list has 11 on YouTube, 6 on TikTok, 5 on X, and 7 on Instagram. Each creator appears once, on the platform where a typical post gets the most views. LinkedIn is not included.
This list needs 6 posts in 90 days. Kitboga posted 4 videos in that time, Seytonic posted 1, and Jim Browning has not posted since June 2026. Fewer than half of NetworkChuck’s last 30 posts are about security.
Start with the people your customers already quote: search a recent breach or a rival’s name on YouTube and X, and see who explained it. To skip the manual search, describe the creator in Klint, for example “privacy creators who have reviewed a password manager.”
Prices depend on the format and the audience. A sponsor segment in a long YouTube video is usually sold per video, while a blog or newsletter slot is sold by the week. Ask for a rate card, and ask which rival products they have promoted.
Yes. Any creator can ask to be taken off Klint’s lists, and the request applies to every page they would otherwise appear on.
Are you on this list and would you rather not be? Write to privacy@tryklint.ai and Klint will take you off.
