An attacker who wants to reach an executive often goes through the people around them. Family members, assistants, advisors, and caregivers all carry access and standing, and none of them sit inside the corporate directory. Dr. Chris Pierson, Founder and CEO of BlackCloak, describes digital executive protection as work that comes down to an individual and the circle around that individual.
What does BlackCloak actually protect? Corporate executives, boards, the C-suite, and their families, across privacy, personal cybersecurity, home network security, deepfake impersonation, and travel. Dr. Chris Pierson frames impersonation protection and deepfake protection as an answer to someone pretending to be a human being in order to swindle, defraud, or take advantage of a persona. The control point sits with the person rather than the message.
What did security teams want to talk about at Black Hat this year? Specifics. Dr. Chris Pierson says the excitement around AI and agentic AI arrived with a demand to dig in and actually talk about it. He recalls standing nearby while BlackCloak SVP of Product Matt Covington explained how the company uses engines, as opposed to the marketing language circulating elsewhere.
Two more patterns came through. People want a real relationship with the team behind a product rather than something they plug in and hook up, and Dr. Chris Pierson points to a community at Black Hat that he says has built up considerably over the past four years or so. People also want net new. Version nine of a familiar firewall is becoming a little less exciting, he says, and the sales engineers spent their time on the additive items instead.
BlackCloak appears on the 2026 Inc. 5000 for a second consecutive year, and earlier in 2026 it was named to Inc.'s Best Workplaces list in the Security Industry category, also for a second year. Dr. Chris Pierson credits the roughly 150 Cloakers based in the US, the company's own word for its team members, for both.
The data matters, the hardware matters, the platform matters, and at the end of it someone clicks, someone allows access, someone does something. That last step is where BlackCloak places its protection.
This is a Black Hat USA 2026 Recap. It is a post-event conversation revisiting the week on the ground, putting a spotlight on the guest and their company and pairing it with the editorial reach of ITSPmagazine. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/performance/#briefing
GUEST
Dr. Chris Pierson, Founder and CEO at BlackCloak
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drchristopherpierson/
RESOURCES
Black Hat USA 2026 event coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/black-hat-usa-2026-cybersecurity-event-coverage-in-las-vegas
Learn more about BlackCloak: https://blackcloak.io
Impersonation Protection: https://blackcloak.io/impersonation-protection/
BlackCloak Extends Deepfake Protection to the Executive's Entire Trusted Circle: https://blackcloak.io/news-media/blackcloak-extends-deepfake-protection-to-the-executives-entire-trusted-circle/
BlackCloak Featured on the 2026 Inc. 5000 for Second Consecutive Year: https://blackcloak.io/news-media/blackcloak-featured-on-the-2026-inc-5000-for-second-consecutive-year/
BlackCloak Named to Inc.'s 2026 Best Workplaces List for Second Consecutive Year: https://www.prweb.com/releases/blackcloak-named-to-incs-2026-best-workplaces-list-for-second-consecutive-year-302788730.html
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KEYWORDS
Dr. Chris Pierson, BlackCloak, Sean Martin, Marco Ciappelli, recap, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, Black Hat USA 2026, digital executive protection, impersonation protection, deepfake protection, circle of trust, executive threat intelligence, travel advisory, human attack surface, Inc. 5000, Cloakers
