In a move to strengthen its business in the government sector, Optiv, a security solutions integrator and Top 250 MSSP, has appointed cybersecurity veteran John Trauth as general manager of Optiv Federal, the company announced September 23.
With more than 35 years of experience in driving revenue growth and operational excellence, Trauth leads a team whose priority is to “offer federal departments and agencies the most efficient and trusted cybersecurity solutions,” the company said in a prepared statement.
Trauth has held several leadership positions with leading technology companies, including BEA, Oracle, IBM, QMS and Tektronix, Optiv said. Most recently, he was founder and CEO of technology company Bricata Inc. Prior to that, he was president for IT security company Cybertap Inc. He also served as president for Merlin International, a federally focused VAR and systems integrator.
Trauth described the path forward in his new role at Optiv Federal:
"As the threat surface continues to evolve, cybersecurity solutions remain a priority at the federal level. As a trusted partner, Optiv continues to ramp up our efforts to ensure federal agencies maintain a strong and resilient security posture, as well as helping clients prepare for upcoming federal regulations such as Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, which helps protect sensitive information from threat actors."
Now, as companies are experiencing a significant increase in the number and sophistication of cybersecurity threats, nowhere is the need to shore up cyber defenses more critical than in the federal sector, Optiv asserts. David Martin, executive vice president and chief services officer at Optiv, noted the advantage Trauth brings to Optiv clients:
"Optiv is focused on being the market leader within the federal sector by driving forward the efforts of bridging our technology relationships and services. John's leadership will help guide our federal team in balancing the successful delivery of strategic services while driving demand for our clients."
Optiv Partners with Canadian Government
In August 2022, MSSP Alert reported that Optiv received the first major enterprise contract under Shared Services Canada’s (SSC) cybersecurity procurement vehicle (CSPV) for its network device authentication (NDA) solution.
Optiv Canada’s NDA solution is delivered in partnership with Venafi, a specialist in securing machine identities, as well as Crypto4A, a next-generation hybrid security platform that manages the lifecycle of device keys for zero trust-based architectures. The combined offering, says Optiv, allows Canada to move away from manual device management by leveraging automation to address the proliferation of interconnected devices.
More About Optiv
In April 2022, Optiv announced a Privileged Access Management as-a-Service (PMaaS) solution powered by the CyberArk Privilege Cloud identity security platform, as reported by MSSP Alert. The PMaaS solution provides planning, implementation and ongoing management to help end-users protect their privileged accounts against cyberattacks.
Optiv is owned by investment company KKR and provides monitoring and other managed security services to global organizations. It also works with more than 400 security technology partners. In October 2021, Optiv rebranded itself as the “the cyber advisory and solutions leader.”
