Chris Hodson

As of December 2023, Chris Hodson was the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Cyberhaven, an appointment the company announced on January 31, 2023.

Career path

Hodson's earliest role in these sources is at Zscaler. A CSO Online contributor profile described him as Senior Director of Information Security for EMEA at Zscaler, running the Office of the CISO in that region.

The same profile said he held a directorship of the IISP and sat on CompTIA's Cyber Security Committee.

Cyberhaven's appointment release lists his Zscaler titles as CISO for EMEA and Data Protection Officer. In those roles he helped customers develop their cybersecurity strategy and worked with internal stakeholders on product development and data protection initiatives.

He then served as Chief Information Security Officer at Tanium. There he oversaw the company's security strategy and the execution of security initiatives across corporate and customer-facing environments.

His next post was at Contentful, where he was responsible for security strategy. That work centred on building a cybersecurity organization to manage the company's technology risks.

He joined Cyberhaven in 2023. The appointment release described him as a four-time CISO.

The sources do not give start or end dates for the Zscaler, Tanium or Contentful roles.

Remit at Cyberhaven

At the time of the announcement, Cyberhaven described itself as the provider of the first Data Detection and Response (DDR) platform.

The company had introduced an Insider Threat Platform in November 2022.

As CSO, Hodson was given oversight of all facets of security protecting Cyberhaven's employees and customers. This included cloud and application security, security operations and risk management.

In the appointment release, he set out his view of where organizations fall short: "Most organizations fail to identify the existential business impact of insider risk."

He also said the company's approach to data protection was among his reasons for joining. He described Cyberhaven as helping companies move from legacy Data Loss Protection practices to a Data Detection and Response approach.

Advisory roles, credentials and writing

Hodson has served as a board advisor at Cybrary, a workforce development platform. He is also a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Information Security.

His RSA Conference speaker biography states that he holds a master's degree in computer and information systems security from Royal Holloway, University of London.

He is the author of the book Cyber Risk Management, which his biographies describe as a number one Amazon bestseller.

During his time at Zscaler he wrote for CSO Online. His articles there included How to engage with the C-Suite on cyber risk management, part 4, published in January 2018.

Another was CISOs: What you can control – and what you can't – in GDPR, published in February 2018.

As a Cyberhaven executive, he contributed to Dark Reading. His September 2023 piece there was titled Proposed SEC Cybersecurity Rule Will Put Unnecessary Strain on CISOs.