Mike Potts to take over as CEO at Webroot

Potts, previously an executive at Cisco, takes over Sept. 25.

U.S. antivirus and cybersecurity company Webroot will have a new CEO by the end of the month after Dick Williams, 73, retires after eight years at the helm.

Mike Potts, previously an executive at Cisco, takes over Sept. 25.

Colorado-based Webroot, founded in 1997, employs 680 people globally and brought on a new CISO, Gary Hayslip, in April 2017. Before Cisco, Potts served as CEO of the network security company Lancope and CEO of Motorola AirDefense (now the IoT security company 802 Secure).

The balance sheet has seen little but good news of late for Webroot, which reported an ongoing streak of 14 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth under Williams. Under his leadership, Williams expanded the business to include endpoint security, network security and threat intelligence services.

Potts will be building Webroot’s threat intelligence business along with building the company’s managed service provider work for small to medium-sized businesses. The consumer market is also viewed as a significant opportunity.

“I joined Webroot because I believe in what the company is doing and see the value in its current strategy, solutions, and execution,” Potts told CyberScoop. “Moving forward, I plan to build on our strong program for MSPs and expand the range of solutions we offer them today. I also see a lot of opportunity in expanding our spot in the consumer market to address the security issues of the Internet of Everything (IoT).”

The company made less positive headlines earlier this year when Webroot software nuked hundreds of benign Windows files and flagged sites including Facebook.com as phishing domains. It was a trying but brief incident for both Webroot and its customers, as the company struggled to deal with both the technical problem and the public blowback.

Also earlier this year, Webroot acquired Oregon-based Securecast to build out Webroot’s security awareness training offerings.

Mike Malloy, Webroot’s executive vice president of product and strategy, will also retire on Sept. 22 in a departure unrelated to the CEO change, a Webroot spokesperson told CyberScoop.

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Technology

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

• The Collective Cyber Defense letter wrote your next vendor questionnaire

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure