Halcyon hires Dave Hannigan as ransomware Security Chief

Halcyon has appointed Dave Hannigan as Field Chief Information Security Officer. He will work with customers and partners on ransomware resilience.

Hannigan joins the cyber security company after more than 25 years in security and technology roles across financial services and technology. Most recently, he was Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Nubank, where he led Information Security, Global IT and Corporate Security.

His appointment brings in a senior security executive with experience across several large technology and finance businesses as Halcyon expands its work with customers facing ransomware threats. In the new role, Hannigan will also support product and commercial teams with input drawn from his experience as a practitioner.

Before Nubank, he was a founding member of the Office of the CISO at Google Cloud, where he worked with global financial institutions on cloud security strategies.

Earlier in his career, Hannigan was Chief Information Security Officer at Spotify during its transition to a public company. He also held Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Cyber Risk Officer roles at Capital One, along with security leadership positions at Sears Holdings, Zappos and Covance.

Industry focus

Ransomware remains a major issue for companies across sectors because attacks can disrupt operations, affect revenue and expose organisations to broader business disruption. Halcyon focuses on ransomware defence and is adding a public-facing security executive as businesses continue to assess how to respond to attacks involving data theft, extortion and operational downtime.

Tony Spinelli, Halcyon's Chief Security Officer, said Hannigan's background makes him well suited to advise customers on those risks.

"Having worked with Dave for more than 25 years, I've seen firsthand how he translates cyber strategy into real-world outcomes for the business. That ability to connect security to operational resilience is exactly what organizations need as ransomware continues to evolve, and it's what makes Dave such a valuable advisor to our customers and the broader security community," said Tony Spinelli, Chief Security Officer at Halcyon.

The new Field Chief Information Security Officer will work closely with customers and partners. The role is commonly used by security suppliers to provide external advice to clients while feeding customer priorities back into internal teams.

Career path

Hannigan has spent much of his career in sectors where cyber security failures can have broad commercial and regulatory consequences. His experience in digital banking, cloud services and consumer technology gives him a background in organisations handling large-scale operations and sensitive data.

Outside his executive roles, he serves as an independent board member for Zero Hash Trust and as a security adviser to Fleet DM. Halcyon also noted that he is a former start-up founder and mentor in the cyber security community.

The decision to hire a Field Chief Information Security Officer reflects a wider trend among cyber security vendors to bring in senior former practitioners for customer-facing roles. These appointments are often intended to help buyers assess security products through the lens of operational risk and business resilience rather than technical features alone.

Hannigan echoed that view in remarks on his appointment.

"In my experience, ransomware has remained one of the most persistent and costly challenges organizations face, yet the approach to stopping it has not evolved fast enough. Halcyon's focus on defeating ransomware as a business risk is what drew me to the company. This is not just a security problem, it is a resilience problem, and Halcyon is uniquely positioned to help organizations solve it," said Hannigan.