Intel Hires Ex-Cisco Security Chief

Christopher Young, who spent the last three years heading up Cisco Systems’ security business, will now lead Intel’s security efforts.

The giant chip maker announced Sept. 29 that Young will be the company’s senior vice president and general manager of Intel Security, reporting to President Renee James. Young had been a senior vice president of Cisco’s global Security and Government Group, working on strategy, engineering and product development.

Young also was co-founder of cyber-security company Cyveillance, where he served as president and chief operating officer.

He was replaced at Cisco by 14-year Cisco veteran David Goeckeler. Prior to Cisco, Young was an executive with VMware and RSA.

“Chris Young is a world-class leader in cyber-security, and I have full confidence that he’ll establish Intel Security as the pre-eminent provider of pervasive security and identity protection,” James said. “The opportunities for innovation and growth are unparalleled.”

Security has been a key focus for Intel as the company has looked to grow its presence in the data center beyond servers. The company bought McAfee in 2011 for $7.68 billion, with company executives saying that being able to integrate security onto the silicon was going to be important. McAfee has been running as a relatively independent subsidiary for most of the past three years, though Intel officials in January said the McAfee name would be slowly phased out, replaced by Intel Security.

Intel Security is a mix of the McAfee business and Intel’s internal teams that have experience in hardware and software, according to the company. The goal of the business unit is to expand the reach of Intel’s security capabilities.