Mary Ann Davidson, Oracle’s chief security officer, and among the highest ranking women in the cyber security space, is leaving the US tech giant as part of its latest reorganisation, Bloomberg reported citing a source in the know.
Bloomberg said she did not respond to queries, till time of writing; and Oracle did not provide a comment on her departure.
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Oracle layoffs amid AI infra push
In a June filing, Oracle noted that day-to-day cybersecurity operations are being overseen by Senior Vice President Robert Duhart. Notably, Duhart joined Oracle from Walmart, where he was chief information security officer.
Davidson’s move out of the tech giant comes after Oracle last week said it is conducting lay offs, to control costs amid push for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the report added.
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Who is Mary Ann Davidson?
Mary Ann Davidson joined Oracle after working as a civil engineer in the United States Navy. She has been with the company for around 37 years, having joined in 1988, as per the report.
Over the years, she has overseen development of the company’s industry-leading systems and processes that test its code for vulnerabilities and protect products from hackers. The report thus noted that Davidson’s departure would have been a shock for many, given her prominence in security community and advocacy for the security of Oracle’s products.
In 2003, she was covered by Businessweek for a profile that described her rise from product marketing at Oracle’s financial software arm, into the secure systems division in 1993. Subsequently she rose to the top security role, becoming the company’s first chief security officer, it added.
According to her profile on the Oracle website, Davidson serves on the international board of the Information Systems Security Association, where she has been named to their Hall of Fame.
She was a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency. She has also testified on cybersecurity to a number of US House and Senate committees.
Davidson has a BSME from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
She received the Navy Achievement Medal when she served as a commissioned officer in the US Navy Civil Engineer Corps.
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Larry Ellison’s ‘right hand’ on security matters
Davidson was also known as the “right-hand” person of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, when it came to all things security. In a 2002 interview with Businessweek, she spoke about the challenges of ensuring that Oracle’s products lived up to the “unbreakable” marketing campaign pushed by Ellison.
“‘Unbreakable’ gives us something to live up to. It really does concentrate the mind wonderfully. The general thought is don’t embarrass the company. Nobody wants to be the group that makes us violate it,” she stated.
There was however some controversy in 2015, when she posted on a personal blog scolding customers for trying to find vulnerabilities in Oracle’s products and violating their licensing agreements. She said that such moves were wasting her team’s time in chasing false positives.
Cybersecurity researchers criticised the post and Oracle had it removed, stating that it “does not reflect our beliefs or our relationship with our customers”, the BB report added.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
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