Facebook’s Head of Security is Leaving Amid Data Scandal

As Facebook scandal increasingly become more dooming, the departure of its Chief Security Officer (CSO), Alex Stamos is looking inevitable as a result of internal disputes traceable to how the company is handling the public tumult and threat.

According to Verge, Stamos would be leaving Facebook before the year ends. And as such, the company has reassigned his daily duties and security team in a bid to oversee a successful transition before his departure. The report says that about 120 employees previously in the security unit have been reassigned to infrastructure and product teams. It is unclear if the Facebook’s security teams are now incorporated into other departments, or if it has a dedicated security team.

Alex Stamos opted to leave Facebook sometime last year, but a swift transition of his duties to other employees was deemed important, hence, Facebook decided to have him stay until August. Keeping him was also seen as beneficial as more Facebook scandal continued to unfold – how the platform was used by Russians to sway voters’ during the 2016 US election. But the situation is looking worse after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Stamos recognized Cambridge Analytica scandal as a data breach since no system was hacked or penetrated.

New York Times reported that Stamos had preferred more disclosure of information about Russian interference of the social media platform and sometimes canvassed for some restructuring to address the security bridge, but his colleagues; other executives resisted his approach. They rather blame him on the recent Facebook scandal– seeing it as a result of him disclosing the Russian activity instead of staying quiet. According to the report, Stamos pushed the Russian ally to reveal findings of its research during his investigation on the Cambridge Analytica in July 2016 but was unsuccessful with the move.

“These are really challenging issues, and I’ve had some disagreements with all of my colleagues, including other executives.” Stamos wrote on Twitter, “still fully engaged with my work at Facebook.” He also acknowledged taking up a different role on Facebook but didn’t address his future plans at the company.  “I’m currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security,” Stamos added.

Facebook Chief Security Officer (CSO), Alex Stamos

Facebook has dismissed changing the role of its Chief Security Officer in an email statement, saying that Alex Stamos remains the company’s CSO. However, the statement did not deny that Stamos would be leaving. “Alex Stamos continues to be the Chief Security Officer (CSO) at Facebook. He has held this position for nearly three years and leads our security efforts especially around emerging security risks. He is a valued member of the team and we are grateful for all he does each and every day,” a spokesperson said.

According to Routers, Mr Stamos joined Facebook in June 2015 after leaving Yahoo because the company secretly built a program to scan emails coming from FBI or NSA. He also served as the chief information security officer at Yahoo.

Stamos recognized Cambridge Analytica scandal as a data breach since no system was hacked or penetrated. He has been one of the Facebook executives ready to talk about the ongoing Facebook scandal on Twitter.

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