Mike Ruettgers Board’s Director, Virsec

Virsec Systems Inc., a cybersecurity company delivering a new approach to protect against advanced attacks, announced that Mike Ruettgers joined Virsec’s board of directors

He joined EMC in 1988 and served as CEO from 1992 until January 2001. He led EMC through a period of growth, with revenues growing from $120 million to nearly $9 billion a decade later. His contributions to EMC continued as he served as executive chairman of EMC’s board through 2005 when he was instrumental in leading all facets of corporate governance. He spent much of his early career with Raytheon and was the lead director of their board for a number of years. Ruettgers has been named one of the World’s Top 25 Executives by BusinessWeek; one of the Best Chief Executive Officers in America by Worth Magazine; one of the 25 Most Powerful People in Networking by Network World. He sits on the board of trustees of Lahey Clinic, on the executive committee of the board of trustees of Holy Cross College, and is a member of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, the Massachusetts High Tech Council, and Business for Better Schools. He holds a BS from Idaho State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

“Mike is a true industry leader and we are very proud to have him join our board,” said Atiq Raza, CEO, Virsec. “As we bring our disruptive security technology to market, Mike will provide critical guidance on how to deliver innovation and scale a world-class company.”

In the last year, there has been a rapid increase in advanced, targeted cyberattacks launched to disrupt businesses, hijack control over internal systems, steal sensitive data, and damage critical infrastructure. Virsec has pioneered technology to protect critical applications from the inside, protecting processes in memory and pinpointing attacks in real-time, within any application. Through its patented Trusted Execution technology, the company maps acceptable application execution, and instantly detects deviations caused by attacks. This deterministic process takes the guesswork out of cybersecurity, detecting and blocking application attacks within milliseconds, with precise forensics at every step.

“Mike brings incredible experience, vision, and pragmatism to every business he touches,” said Yatim Mundkur, partner at Artiman Ventures and fellow board member. “Combining his wisdom with Virsec’s game-changing technology will make them a force to be reckoned with in the security industry.”

The Virsec platform will be introduced at the RSA Conference, April 16-20 in San Francisco, CA.