Awake Security has appointed former Cylance CTO Rahul Kashyap as its new CEO.
Founding CEO Michael Callahan will continue to be actively involved in Awake Security’s operations, and will take on a technical leadership role at the company. He will also remain a member of the board of directors, along with Asheem Chandna, founding investor at Palo Alto Networks and partner at Greylock Partners, and Enrique Salem, former CEO of Symantec and managing director at Bain Capital Ventures.
I look forward to working closely with Rahul and the rest of the Awake team to help advance our technology leadership and scale the company.
– Michael Callahan, co-founder, director and former CEO, Awake Security
“Rahul brings highly relevant experience in the cybersecurity industry leading product as well as research and development efforts at companies like Cylance, McAfee and Bromium. I’m confident that he is the perfect candidate to advance Awake’s technology platform and lead the company through its next phase of growth,” said Chandna.
Awake Security’s Network Detection and Response platform employs artificial intelligence to help companies detect signs of a cyberattack or breach which might be missed by traditional antivirus, such as insider threat or non-malware attacks. By analysing every packet on the network, it tracks and builds profiles of devices, applications and users, and detects and flags atypical behaviour which could indicate a threat.
The company is now seeing the onset of a tremendous growth stage that in many ways is similar to what I experienced at Cylance.
– Rahul Kashyap, CEO, Awake Security
Kashyap’s former company, Cylance, also uses AI to detect potential threats, and recently closed a $120 million Series E financing round. Kashyap was at Cylance for two years, beginning as Chief Product Officer before taking on the CTO position. Before that, he was executive vice president of products at Bromium and head of vulnerability research at McAfee.
“Awake has uniquely applied artificial intelligence to automate the detection of sophisticated threats that today requires manual and time-consuming efforts from experienced threat hunters. Its intelligent platform makes adding capabilities to detect new and evolving threats quick and simple for Awake, its partners and customers,” said Kashyap. “With that foundation, the company is now seeing the onset of a tremendous growth stage that in many ways is similar to what I experienced at Cylance.”
Given his technical and strategic background at these big-name cybersecurity companies – Cylance being particularly relevant – the insights and experience Kashyap will bring to Awake Security will no doubt be extremely valuable to the company.
“I’m very excited to welcome Rahul to Awake as CEO,” said Callahan. “We are closing a record quarter, with six-figure wins across Fortune 500 customers. I look forward to working closely with Rahul and the rest of the Awake team to help advance our technology leadership and scale the company.”
