Senior Director of Cybersecurity, Hikvision

Chuck Davis

Chuck Davis, MSIA, CISSP-ISSAP, is Senior Director of Cybersecurity at Hikvision, a global company with more than 40,000 employees and 59 branch offices and subsidiaries around the world. Based in the U.S., Davis leads the global cybersecurity team and, under his leadership, Hikvision has achieved several cybersecurity milestones to include the establishment of the Source Code Transparency Center at Hikvision USA’s Los Angeles headquarters, where government and law enforcement officials may examine the source code for Hikvision’s cameras and NVRs.

Davis also established a cybersecurity testing lab in California, as well as a cybersecurity hotline. Since he joined, the company became a CVE CNA (CVE Numbering Authority), and has committed to continuing to work with third-party white-hat hackers and security researchers to find and patch vulnerabilities and publicly release updates to products in a timely manner.

Though Hikvision had a product security team and an IT security department for several years, it did not have a global cybersecurity program tasked with supporting business goals, education and outreach until Davis joined the company in 2017. In four years, he has built a global program from the ground up, and the team now staffs an Information Security Engineer in California and Director of Cybersecurity EMEA in the Netherlands. The global teams provide cyber expertise to offices in countries around the world. Some of his initiatives include a cybersecurity certification program, formalized consulting service for customers, increased educational opportunities and resources, and an overall increase of cyber awareness both internally and externally.

In addition, Davis leads an ongoing initiative to provide vendor-neutral education and awareness about cybersecurity globally, as well as hosting cybersecurity road shows in across America, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. While the in-person road shows have been suspended since March of 2020 due to the pandemic, he has led a series of virtual cybersecurity webinars, including an 8-week virtual cybersecurity webinar series for employees and customers around the world. During the pandemic, he has volunteered his time to two organizations who are fighting against COVID-19-based cybercrime, Cyber Volunteers 19, based in the U.K., and CTI League.

Davis writes a (non-Hikvision) cybersecurity blog “Between the Hacks,” which is designed to be an engaging and topical educational resource for anyone — from non-tech to white-hat hacker — to learn about cybersecurity.

He is passionate about volunteering in his spare time. He says, “On Sept. 21, 2001, 10 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, I was honored to volunteer for the September 11th Tribute to Heroes Relief Fund Telethon and Benefit Concert. I managed intrusion detection for the event, which raised money for victims and their families, particularly the New York City firefighters and New York City police officers. Giving back through volunteer work is extremely rewarding, and I’m proud to have done pro-bono work with some wonderful organizations over the course of my career.”

Davis frequently provides pro-bono cybersecurity consulting for non-profit groups in his home city of Denver.