Hans Petter Holen

In January 2024, a compromised RIPE NCC Access account turned an account-security weakness into an executive decision: stop treating two-factor authentication as optional, reorder the engineering roadmap and make stronger access controls part of the registry’s operating baseline. Hans Petter Holen’s role in that reset is clearest when it is kept within its documented limits—not as the engineer who implemented every control, but as the managing director who communicated the incident, announced the decision and later explained the operational consequences.

Sofia Ren profiles Hans Petter Holen through the public record that connects an early Norwegian internet-service builder, a former RIPE Chair, and the RIPE NCC's current chief executive to the quiet governance work that keeps number resources, registry trust, and community legitimacy usable infrastructure.