Big security names land at European firm

Some of you might be wondering whatever happened to the following big-name security practitioners:

– Paul Kurtz, former executive director of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance

– Karen Worstell, former CISO at Microsoft and AT&T Wireless

– Pam Fusco, former EVP at CitiGroup and CISO at Merck

It turns out they are now part of Neupart A/S, a five-year-old European security risk management and awareness firm that’s about to expand into the U.S.

Neupart president Jim Reavis told me Monday that the organization has just launched a North American office in the Seattle area. Reavis said the company is promoting industry awareness of ISO 27001 and other security standards, and the U.S. expansion comes as American businesses emerge from their SOX, HIPAA and GLB compliance projects, ready to take a fresh look at ISO 27001.

“The U.S. hasn’t been ready to adopt ISO 27001 because it has been dealing with more home-grown regs like SOX,” he said. “But more companies are now in a position to tackle this particular regulation.”

As part of the U.S. push, he said the company recently added the services of Kurtz, Worstell and Fusco.