Two people who left their last job amid brewing scandals teamed up to restore the image of a business that is surely going through its worst days ever.
Former director of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency, Chris Krebs, unceremoniously fired by President Trump after the November election, a new company was formed with Alex Stamos, the former head of Facebook’s security operations, leaving the company amid revelations about his involvement in the boring Cambridge-Analytica scandal. Just called the Krebs Stamos group, the startup already has its first customer: a small company called SolarWinds.
That’s right. The software firm in the middle of the largest hood in American history hired Krebs and Stamos as consultants to rebuild their trust in their brand. Now known as the “SolarWinds hack”, the apparently Russian-of-origin cyber intrusion scandal engulfed the public and private sectors, and is only growing further. About 18,000 entities are thought it was affected, and the extent to which the potential state-aided hackers were able to gather intelligence through their operations is still unclear.
“Armed with what we have learned from this attack, we are also reflecting on our own security practices and looking for opportunities to improve our attitude and policies,” a spokesman for SolarWinds told Bloomberg News. “We brought in the expertise of Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to help with this review and provide the best in class guidance on our journey to develop into a leading software development company.”
G / O Media can get a commission
The appointment of Krebs and Stamos is an interesting step – as they, like SolarWinds, have a significant professional reputation that has nevertheless been forced to withstand various major IT scandals.
Previously, Krebs served as director of the CISA, one of the most prominent cyber positions within the federal government. Trump fired Krebs after refusing the blresident’s fake claims of an ‘illegal election’ and voter fraud. While Krebs apparently assisted chairman of the “safest election” ever, he also served at CISA while the SolarWinds hackers were apparently worming their way into every conceivable federal agency – not a spectacular thing to have in your resume.
Stamos, meanwhile, previously worked as a security manager at Yahoo when Russian hackers compromised about 500 million Yahoo user accounts. He joined Facebook in 2015 as his chief ssecurity officer but very public left the company three years later when it became entangled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Stamos called for ‘more disclosure about Russian interference in the platform and some restructuring to better address the issues’, but was opposed by the company’s leadership. the New York Times reported at the time.
Krebs announced the news of his and Stamos’ new concert via Twitter on Friday morning.
Although it is unclear so far what exactly services the Krebs Stamos group will offer (or who, if any, are their other customers), the duo’s website is currently talking about it to give their customers an understanding of “the threats they face‘And’ the weaknesses in their attitude ‘, while also giving’ clear, frank and experienced advice on critical, long-term decisions in moments of extreme crisis. ‘Sure, Stamos and Krebs have experience with that.