atsec

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• Company History
• Principles
• Management Team
• Jobs

Management Team

Salvatore La Pietra

President, atsec
CEO, atsec U.S.
Managing Director, atsec Germany
Finance and Controlling, atsec
Salvatore La Pietra, a co-founder of atsec, has more than twenty years of security management experience. In his current role, La Pietra is responsible for business development through project acquisitions, strategic management, resource allocation and recruiting.
Prior to co-founding atsec, La Pietra was a senior consultant and information technology (IT) security chief specialist at IBM and was in charge of the IBM European Security Center of Competence in Munich, which conducted major security projects for European industries and banks. At IBM, he was responsible for the first ITSEC (Information Technology Security Evaluation Criteria) evaluation of AIX. Before joining IBM, La Pietra earned experience at Open Software Foundation (OSF) and Sun Microsystems.
La Pietra holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Torino, Italy.

Helmut Kurth

Chief Scientist, atsec
Lab Director, atsec U.S.
Helmut Kurth, a co-founder of atsec, has been active in security research and standardization in information security for more than twenty-five years. He is one of the leading experts on IT security in Europe and the main author of the German IT security evaluation criteria and the associated evaluation methodology. His extensive experience with international IT security standards makes him the atsec expert on matters related to standards interpretation and implementation, especially on groundbreaking efforts like the evaluation of Linux operating systems against progressively more rigorous assurance levels.
Kurth speaks regularly at conferences and has published numerous papers on information security. He has been an active member of the Steering Committee of ESORICS (European Symposium on Research in Computer Security) since it was founded. He has been a member of the program committees of various conferences for research in computer security including the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, the ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security, ESORICS, and the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (Track on Computer Security).
Kurth holds a master's degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Bonn, Germany.

Staffan Persson

Managing Director, atsec Germany
Managing Director, atsec Sweden
Chief Financial Officer, atsec
Staffan Persson, a co-founder of atsec, has more than twenty years of experience in designing and evaluating security systems. He is currently responsible for atsec's commercial security consulting operations and strategic security projects in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Prior to co-founding atsec, Persson served as Managing Director of Trusted Information Systems in Germany. Because of his industry expertise, he lectures on security issues and is published extensively.
Persson holds a degree in Physics Engineering and Computer Science from Chalmers Technical University, Sweden.

Fiona Pattinson

Director of Business Development and
Strategy, atsec U.S.
Lab Manager, atsec U.S.
Fiona Pattinson is the Director of Business Development and Strategy, Laboratory Manager, and a principal consultant for atsec U.S. Pattinson is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP). She serves on the U.S. INCITS CS1 committee 'Cyber Security' and works on Common Criteria and other security standards in the ISO SC27 WG3 'Security Techniques'. Pattinson's IT career began in 1984 with assembly programming, progressing through computer operations management, technical support, systems analysis, new business development, software development quality, and information security consultant. Prior to joining atsec, Pattinson worked for Schlumberger in the U.K. and as an independent consultant in the U.S.
Pattionson earned her M.Sc. in Computing for Commerce and Industry from the Open University, U.K.

David Ochel

Chief Operations Officer, atsec U.S.
Managing Director, atsec China
David Ochel is the Chief Operations Officer for atsec U.S., in charge of daily operations, personnel, and security. He is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). On the technical side, Ochel actively participates as principal consultant or evaluator in numerous projects, and provides advice on security infrastructures. He also contributes to business development for atsec China as a Managing Director.
Ochel holds a degree in Applied Computer Science from the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Germany.

Apostol Vassilev

Cryptographic and Security Testing (CST) Laboratory Manager, atsec U.S.
Apostol Vassilev is the Cryptographic and Security Testing (CST) Laboratory Manager for atsec. He is currently responsible for directing the CST Lab operations under several federal information security programs in the US: CMVP, CAVP, NPIVP, SCAP, and GSA FIPS 201 EP. Apostol has worked in the information security field for more than ten years. Prior to joining atsec, Apostol founded NetIDSys - a startup that developed a smart badge solution based on Java card technology that was successfully deployed at Chevron and other companies. Prior to NetIDSys, Apostol worked for Schlumberger where he designed and led the development of several IT security products currently deployed at Fortune 500 companies, such as the corporate badge for Microsoft based on the .NET smart card technology. Apostol regularly speaks at conferences and has authored many scientific papers in leading journals.
He is also an inventor and a holder of multiple patents, including patents in the information security domain. Apostol holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University, USA.

Ken Hake

Common Criteria Laboratory Manager, atsec U.S
Project Manager
Ken Hake is the Project Manager for atsec U.S., overseeing Common Criteria evaluations in both the NIAP and the BSI schemes. Ken currently holds a certification from the Project Management Institute. Ken's career in Information Systems began in 1978 with IBM corporation, where he worked first as a Systems Engineer with direct customer contact and then in various support roles and project management roles within the development organization. His experience ranges from mainframe IBM systems to Linux and includes working with the open source community.