Yahoo has hired Alex Stamos, a well-known security researcher, and entrusted him with the role of company’s Chief Information Security Officer.
Stamos was one of the key organizers of the Security Conference TrustyCon, which was held in protest at the RSA conference in San Francisco over alleged collusion between some technology companies and the National Security Agency.
Stamos’ appointment as the company’s CISO was announced on Monday by Yahoo Senior Vice President Jay Rossiter in an official blog post.
Stamos previously worked as chief technology officer of the security firm Artemis and was also one of the co-founder of iSEC Partners, a security company that was acquired by NCC Group, the parent of Artemis, in October 2010.
Rossiter’s post read “Part of that experience is the trust that consumers put in us to keep their personal data secure. This trust is critical to our brand and is critical to our commitment to the hundreds of millions of users who make our products part of their daily habits. That’s why I’m thrilled to welcome Alex Stamos to Yahoo.”
Stamos will be holding a board role and will be overlooking all aspects of information security at Yahoo including Yahoo ‘Paranoids’. He will not only be responsible for top-to-bottom security of Yahoo’s products and systems but also will be leading the company and industry as a whole on security of the future.
Justin Somaini, who was Yahoo’s last IT Chief, left the company almost a year ago.
