Absolute Software Corporation, a maker of endpoint security and management solutions for computers and mobile devices, announced on Friday that it has appointed Geoff Haydon as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors.
Most recently serving as Chief Operating Officer for EMC’s Asia-Pacific and Japan region, Haydon brings more than 20 years of IT experience to security firm.
Prior to serving in the COO role, Haydon was Vice President of Americas Sales at EMC’s RSA Security unit.
Haydon will join Absolute on July 7 and relocate to the company’s corporate head office in Vancouver, Canada, the company said.
Additionally, as part of a management shakeup, Rob Chase, Absolute’s Chief Operating Officer, has announced that he is leaving the Company effective June 18.
Chase will continue to be involved with the company in limited capacity as a strategic advisor. Errol Olsen, who has served as interim Chief Executive Officer, will continue in his role as Absolute’s Chief Financial Officer, the company said.
The company came under fire earlier this year when researchers from Kaspersky Lab claimed that Absolute’s Computrace agent, marketed as a product that can help organizations track and secure their endpoints, could be used as a springboard for attackers. Additionally, because the Computrace agent resides in the firmware of many popular laptop and desktop computers, it is difficult to remove, the report said.
Absolute Software fired back at Kaspersky Lab’s assertion that its Computrace software can be exploited by hackers, saying that the installation process is under the full control of the Absolute Computrace administrator and once the installation is complete, the communication is secure and uses encryption as well as authentication of the host server to reject attacks as described in the Kaspersky report.