Mikko Hypponen is chief research officer for F-Secure. He has worked with F-Secure since 1991. Hypponen led the team that took down the world-wide network used by the Sobig.F worm in 2003. Under his leadership, F-Secure research teams have also stopped several worldwide computer virus epidemics, and this has earned F-Secure an international reputation as a very fast and reliable antivirus company. Hypponen was the first to warn the world about the Sasser outbreak in 2004 and named the infamous Storm Worm in 2007.

Hypponen has assisted law enforcement in USA, Europe and Asia on cybercrime cases and has also been a visible IT security spokesperson in major media, including CNN, BBC, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He has written for magazines such as Scientific American, Foreign Policy and Virus Bulletin.

Hypponen has addressed the most important security-related conferences worldwide. He is also an inventor for several patents, including US patent 6,577,920 "Computer virus screening". He has been the subject of dozens of interviews in global TV and print media, including a 9-page profile in Vanity Fair.

In March 2007, Hypponen, born in 1969, was nominated one of the 50 most important people on the web by the US-based PC World magazine.

Apart from computer security issues, Hypponen enjoys collecting and restoring classic arcade video games and pinball machines from past decades. He lives with his family, and a small deer community, in an island near Helsinki.