Alex Stamos has announced that he is joining Facebook on Monday as the company's new chief security officer. Stamos will be filling in the post vacated by Joe Sullivan after the latter joined Uber Technologies Inc. in April.
Prior to his move to Facebook, Stamos was the chief information security officer at Yahoo, a post which he had held since March 2014.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Stamos was "responsible for all aspects of information security. My goal is to build products and systems that keep all of our users safe on any platform from anywhere in the world."
In line with his new appointment, the 36-year-old Stamos updated each of his social media profiles and has been sending tweets and status updates.
"I am very happy to announce that I will be joining Facebook as their Chief Security Officer next Monday," said Stamos in a Facebook post. "The Internet has been an incredible force for connecting the world and giving individuals access to personal, educational and economic opportunities. This is why I am joining Facebook. There is no company in the world that is better positioned to tackle the challenges faced not only by today's Internet users but for the remaining 2/3rds of humanity we have yet to connect."
Stamos' departure from Yahoo came following other major executive departures at the company. These include senior executive Mike Kerns who used to be in charge of Yahoo's homepage and Ned Brody, head of Americas.
Stamos also became the chief technology officer at Artemis, a sister company of iSEC, which is a division of the NCC Group, from May 2012 to February 2014. He was tasked with meeting the company mission of building a more "trustworthy Internet, starting with the SECURE Top Level Domain."
Stamos' post at Yahoo will be filled in by Ramses Martinez, senior director at Yahoo Security. Yahoo said that Martinez will serve as the company's interim CISO.
During his tenure at Yahoo, the company offered a number of encrypted-focus services to its users, which include a fully encrypted email service and more encrypted-based websites.
Stamos is also popularly known for bringing occasional levity to computer security and has become the inspiring force behind a recent Page One story that was published in the Wall Street Journal, which talked about the prefix "cyber" and its overusage.
