AV Trust has launched as a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving cybersecurity practices across the commercial audio-visual and unified communications industries.

Founded by Douglas Schaefer, president; Colin Birney, vice president and treasurer; and Frank Padikkala, secretary, the organization aims to advance cybersecurity in AV and UC technologies through education, research and coordinated communication around vulnerabilities and security standards frameworks. AV Trust said it will operate as an independent resource for identifying, cataloging and communicating security vulnerabilities and best practices in AV and unified communications systems.

The group plans to support structured vulnerability disclosure processes and contribute to the development and evaluation of cybersecurity standards tailored to AV environments, where increasing network connectivity has introduced new risk profiles.

“The audio-visual industry has evolved over time to embrace a more connected architecture, but our security practices haven’t kept pace,” Doug Schaefer, President said. “We created AV Trust to change that by bringing the same vulnerability disclosure and security standards frameworks to AV that have protected traditional IT for decades. We hope that this can be a catalyst for keeping security at the forefront of AV system design and product development and ultimately make AV a safer and more consistent technology stack for organizations to use.”

AV Trust is currently seeking council members from both the cybersecurity and AV communities to serve in three areas: a Secretariat Council to coordinate vulnerability disclosure and communication activities; a Standards Council to evaluate and create cybersecurity standards; and an Education and Events Council to develop and manage training resources and industry events.

In addition to volunteer leadership roles, the organization is seeking financial support from AV companies to fund operational costs, security-related events, standards development and professional research expertise.

AV Trust said it intends to collaborate with the broader security community to address systemic security issues often associated with connected AV and IoT devices. More information, including contact details and access to the organization’s Discord server, is available at avtrust.org and on its LinkedIn page.