The DNC'S New Security Officer Knows All About Crisis

Source: Wired

THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL Committee has hired Bob Lord, most recently Yahoo's head of information security, to be its chief security officer—a brand new position, created in the aftermath of the historic hack by Russian operatives of the DNC's servers during the 2016 presidential campaign.

This is Lord's first foray into the world of politics, having spent his career in Silicon Valley working at companies like Twitter, AOL, and Netscape. But it's far from Lord's first stint leading a cleanup crew in the wake of an extensive and deeply damaging hack. Lord was responsible for detecting two massive data breaches that occurred prior to his arrival at Yahoo, and worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down those responsible.

"I'll be working to protect my new colleagues at the DNC from the attackers who would prefer to keep us distracted from our mission of getting Democrats across the nation elected," Lord said in a statement. "And my job doesn’t stop at the front door of the building—my team and I will work with state parties to update their information security strategies and deployments to change the economics for the attackers.” On Thursday, Lord was already meeting with state party chairs, leading a tutorial on security protocol for volunteers and new hires.

According to Raffi Krikorian, who worked with Lord at Twitter and now serves as the DNC's chief technology officer, Lord's experience dealing with the Yahoo hack was central to the committee's decision to hire him.

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/bob-lord-dnc-chief-security-officer