Fortinet announced on Tuesday said that it has hired former NSA Cyber Task Force Chief, Phil Quade, as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Quade, who was a keynote speaker at SecurityWeek’s 2015 ICS Cyber Security Conference, comes to the network security company from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), where he served as Director ADM Mike Rogers’ Special Assistant for Cyber and Chief of the NSA Cyber Task Force.
Quade served the Department of Defense for more than thirty-years, and brings extensive cybersecurity and networking experience working across foreign, government, critical infrastructure and commercial industry sectors at the NSA.
In previous roles, Quade served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA, as well as the head of the Information Operations Technology Center’s Advanced Technology Group. Additional assignments held by Quade at the NSA include computer and network security evaluator, cryptanalyst and policy management.
In his new role as CISO at Fortinet, Quade will take responsibility for the network security firm’s information security and compliance. Additionally, he will lead the strategy and expansion of Fortinet’s Federal and Critical Infrastructure business, the company said.
Additionally, Quade will serve as a strategic consultant to Fortinet’s C-Level enterprise customers to help inform product development and innovation based on evolving cybersecurity requirements. He will report Fortinet founder, chairman and CEO, Ken Xie.
In additional to leading corporate security initiatives, Quade will be involved with global intelligence and partnerships to help Fortinet’s customer base.
“With Phil’s extensive background working at the National Security Agency and with the Defense Department he brings incredible insight on the technologies, threat landscape and partnerships needed to deliver the most effective approaches to data security,” Ken Xie, founder, chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fortinet, said in a statement. “He is a strong addition to our executive leadership team and will be focused on safeguarding Fortinet’s information technology and assets, expanding our strategic national programs, as well as serving as a trusted advisor to our C-Level enterprise customers.”
“Bringing together the right mix of technology, threat intelligence risk management and partnerships to protect global information and assets is my passion,” Quade said. “Fortinet’s Security Fabric vision aligns perfectly to what it takes to deliver an end-to-end, intelligent, scalable, and integrated security architecture for today’s digital economy.”
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