In a bid to repair its image and solve its recent cybersecurity issues, IT management software provider SolarWinds has hired former U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) Director Chris Krebs and former Facebook security executive Alex Stamos.
First reported by the Financial Times, SolarWinds is one of the first customers of the Krebs Stamos Group, which was recently formed to help companies better secure their networks.
We work with our clients to help them understand the threats they face, the weaknesses in their posture, and the role they play in the security of our wider society,” the group’s website says.
“We help our clients build the security teams, processes, programs, and culture needed to exceed the expectations of their customers and shareholders. We provide our clients clear-eyed, candid and experienced advice on critical, long-lasting decisions in moments of extreme crisis.”
The hiring of Krebs and Stamos comes as SolarWinds continues to deal with the aftermath of a massive hacking campaign that utilized the company’s Orion platform. Nearly 18,000 customers were using a compromised version of the platform that hackers were able to compromise by inserting malicious code into an update.
Krebs was most recently the first director of CISA where he helped respond to national cybersecurity threats. In recent months, Krebs has made headlines for his aggressive defending of the security of the U.S. presidential election in November.
Read Next: SolarWinds Hackers Viewed Microsoft Source Code; Victim List Grows to 250
He was fired via tweet by President Donald Trump just two weeks after the election.
News broke last night that I’m jumping into the next chapter of my career alongside @alexstamos. We’ve teamed up to form https://t.co/pystaH2Ug9. Our concept is simple: help businesses manage cybersecurity risk as business risk, making the Internet a safer place in the meantime.
— Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) January 8, 2021
“Our concept is simple: help businesses manage cybersecurity risk as business risk, making the Internet a safer place in the meantime,” Krebs said in a tweet.
According to Stamos’ bio on the firm’s website, he is the founder of the Stanford Internet Observatory and a recognized security technologist. He also led security teams at Facebook and Yahoo.
We have already engaged in helping understand and recover from what looks to be one of the most serious foreign intrusion campaigns in history, and we will be helping others learn from this attack. (2/4)https://t.co/PFt3Zcg6Px
— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) January 8, 2021
In a series of Tweets, Stamos said the group is already working to help “understand and recover” from the SolarWinds compromise, which he called “one of the most serious foreign intrusion campaigns in history.”
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