Colin Carmichael
attacks , people who want to ‘ bring you to your knees ’, ransomware and phishing are off the charts – there ’ s a whole industry of adversaries out there , and they are very , very sophisticated .” This increase in sophistication , Carmichael maintains , is the leading driver behind the unending innovation cycle at FireEye . “ The bad guy used to be thought of as a teenager in dark glasses and a hoodie ,” he chuckles . “ Today , that ’ s not the case . There are organized Advanced Persistent Threat groups – that are typically nation state driven – as well as organized crime groups out there . It ’ s a war .”
Carmichael and FireEye are as close to winning that war as anyone , but the process is a constant battle to stay one step ahead of the bad guys . “ You have to continuously innovate . When you identify a new vulnerability – a new attack vector for those bad guys – you ’ ve got to be able to respond immediately ,” he says . As technological security measures become increasingly airtight , users are being targeted more and more as weak points in security systems . According to Carmichael , ransomware attacks are
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EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Colin Carmichael
As Chief Information Officer , Colin Carmichael is responsible for leading the Information Systems & Services organization as they seek to deliver highly secure , modern and frictionless IT architecture and services to FireEye . Prior to FireEye , Colin held senior IT executive positions at Coopervision , Amazon and Sun Microsystems . At Sun , he was handpicked to run one of the world ’ s largest ERP implementations for the office of the CFO for 2 years , which led to the eventual integration into Oracle Corp after the acquisition of Sun . Colin has a Masters , IT in Commerce and Industry from The Open University in the UK .
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