Michael A. Davis

Michael A. Davis has been privileged to help shape and educate the global community on the evolution of IT security. His portfolio of clients includes international corporations such as AT&T, Sears, and Exelon as well as the U.S. Department of Defense. Davis’ early embrace of entrepreneurship earned him a spot on BusinessWeek’s “Top 25 under 25” list, recognizing his 2005 launch of IT security consulting firm Savid Technologies, which was recognized as one of the fastest growing security companies of its decade. He has a passion for educating others, as a contributing author for the “Hacking Exposed” books, as a speaker at dozens of conferences and symposiums, and through industry publications including InformationWeek and Dark Reading.

Most recently, Davis has served as CTO of CounterTack, provider of an endpoint security platform delivering real-time cyber threat detection and forensics. He chose to join the company because he recognized that the battle is moving to the endpoint, and that conventional IT security technologies can’t protect enterprises. Rather, he saw a need to deliver to the community continuous attack monitoring backed by automated threat analysis.

Davis brings a solid background in IT threat assessment and protection to his latest posting, having been Senior Manager Global Threats for McAfee prior to launching Savid, which was acquired by External IT.

Aside from his work advancing cyber security, Davis has been a partner in a number of diverse entrepreneurial startups; held a leadership position at 3com; managed two Internet service providers; and recently served as President/CEO of the InClaro Group, a firm providing information security advisory and consulting services based on a unique risk assessment methodology.

Davis' ability to analyze, translate, and make connections among emerging IT and security trends combined with a business and entrepreneurial mindset make him a popular speaker — he strives to present complex concepts in a way that delivers value to a range of listeners. He regularly presents at industry conferences including Black Hat, Interop, SuperStrategies, and InfoSecWorld. His long-term vision, to create systems that will “push defenders ahead of attackers,” is relevant to wide array of enterprise, government and vertical-industry stakeholders.

"The phrase " I can't " is the most powerful force of negation in the human psyche.

When done properly, security controls enable IT to say "we can".