Michael Coates, the chief information security officer (CISO) of Twitter, announced on Wednesday that he has decided to leave the social media giant. Google’s Michał Zalewski has also announced his departure.
Coates, who joined Twitter in January 2015, says he will co-found a cybersecurity startup, but has not shared any details.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Coates has been working in cybersecurity since 2004, including at Motorola, Aspect Security and Shape Security. Between March 2010 and October 2013, he led Mozilla’s Security Assurance program.
Until recently he was on the global board of directors of the OWASP Foundation, and is presently on the board of several organizations, including Comprehend Systems, Synack, and Vendor Security Alliance.
The Verge reported that Joseph Camilleri, a senior manager for information security and risk, will act as interim CISO at Twitter following Coates’ departure.
Zalewski, director of information security engineering and assurance at Google, also announced his departure on Wednesday, but has not shared his plans for the future.
Zalewski, known online as lcamtuf, joined Google in July 2007.
The announcements made by Zalewski and Coates come just days after reports that Facebook CISO Alex Stamos is leaving the social media giant in the wake of internal clashes over how to deal with the platform being used to spread misinformation.
“Despite the rumors, I’m still fully engaged with my work at Facebook,” Stamos said in response to a New York Times article on his alleged departure from Facebook. “It’s true that my role did change. I’m currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security.”
*UPDATED. The article incorrectly stated that Gerhard Eschelbeck, vice president of security and privacy engineering at Google, was leaving the company. We regret the error.
