McAfee Looking For New CTO After Kurtz Steps Down

"McAfee is currently in discussions with candidates for the CTO position, and an announcement will be made when that person is selected," a McAfee spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "We thank George for his many contributions to McAfee over the years."

The spokesperson also confirmed that Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee, has left the company. Both executive departures were first reported on Tuesday by Reuters.

Kurtz came to McAfee through the company’s 2044 acquisition of Foundstone, where he was CEO. He previously held the role of senior vice president and general manager of McAfee's Risk and Compliance Business Unit, and he's been credited with helping to drive the company's security risk management strategy.

In a February panel discussion at RSA on Advanced Persistent Threats , Kurtz said that the ongoing attacks on global oil, energy, and petrochemical companies that began in November 2009 -- which McAfee has dubbed "Night Dragon" -- have proven very effective for the masterminds behind it.

"Until the cost of the intrusion goes up for the attackers, we're not going to see this solved," Kurtz said during the panel.

Alperovitch has been vocal about the dangers of APTs, and in McAfee's Operation Shady RAT report in August, he said organizations have good reason to be concerned about their implications.

"I am convinced that every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact," Alperovitch said in the report.