- General
- August 14, 2018
- 5 minutes read
Uber adds former NSA General Counsel to lead its security team
Uber Uber Technologies has named former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen as its Chief Trust and Security Officer…
 |
| Uber |
Uber Technologies has named former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen as its Chief Trust and Security Officer in a new move which marks efforts by the company to boost security for its data crucial global ride-hailing network.
As announced by its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on Tuesday, Olsen will be replacing former cybersecurity chief Joe Sullivan who left the company after revelations of a massive data breach concerning tens of millions of users was outed and now heads security at web-performance and security startup CloudFlare.
Thrilled to have Matt Olsen on board as #Uber Chief Trust and Security Officer. He has more than earned the respect of our team at all levels while working with us over the last few months – https://t.co/Xxssp1Wa3r— dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) August 14, 2018
Olsen has served as chief legal adviser to the NSA in addition to holding various leadership positions at government agencies and joined Uber last year as an adviser with him now officially mounting a position to head the company’s security efforts.
“Matt understands how Uber works and he has deep respect for the incredible talent inherent in our Security teams,” Uber Chief Legal Officer Tony West wrote in an email sent to the company’s employees shared by the ride-hailing firm. “He’ll hit the ground running, shaping strategy and policies that will help our teams unlock their innovative potential when it comes to protecting our customers, riders and employees.”
Speaking to the New York Times concerning the breach which occurred 2016 but was covered up for a year before being made public, Olsen stated “I know Uber made some substantial changes in terms of eliminating, quite decisively, some of the activities that were done more in secret and saying, that’s just not part of who we are going forward,” He continued. “That was my reaction when I learned about some of these activities: ‘That just doesn’t make sense to me.’”
“I think they understand the need to be transparent and ethical, and vigilant in complying not just with the laws and regulations that apply, but the norms and standards that Uber customers and stakeholders expect of the company,”.
With Olsen’s expertise, He’s set to lead security for Uber at a time the company has been making vast moves to rebrand itself after it faced backlash and several hurdles over how it aggressively ran its operations in previous times under former CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick. Since taking the position of CEO last year, Dara Khosrowshahi has led major moves to revamp its culture and operations with efforts to boost Uber’s brand image which has so far proven quite good although some hassles still remain for the ride-hailing giant to conquer.
