Danny Pickens joins Fidelis as threat research director

Fidelis Cybersecurity of Bethesda, MD announced on December 19 the appointment of Danny Pickens as director of the Threat Research Team. Pickens brings over a decade of experience in military intelligence, counterterrorism and cybersecurity to Fidelis.

“Danny has a wealth of expertise, coming from the military and intelligence communities as well as leading large-scale, commercial cyber threat intelligence operations. We are thrilled to have him lead our Threat Research Team in delivering countermeasures and finished intel to our products and customers,” said Nick Lantuh, president and CEO, Fidelis Cybersecurity. “The threat intelligence derived by Danny and the Team, along with the rich metadata, content and contextual understanding that we capture from customer networks, cloud and endpoints, are critical components to effectively hunt for threats buried deep within your environment.”

Prior to joining Fidelis, Pickens served as a director at Optiv where he managed the Global Threat Intelligence Center and lead research for managed security services. He spent the majority of his career within the United States military and various divisions of the Department of Defense and other U.S. Government organizations, working across the tactical, operational and strategic-levels of intelligence and cyber operations. He continues to serve in the U.S. Army Reserves as an intelligence team Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) where he supervises the preparation and dissemination of all-source intelligence products, intelligence summaries, forecasts, and assessments.

“The best cybersecurity is armed with true intelligence – the work of understanding threat motives to better predict and prevent malicious activities,” said Pickens. “This intelligence is required for leaders to make informed and good, judgement-based decisions. It has a role in every industry, but the expectation and abilities in cyber threat intelligence have evolved dramatically in the past few years, moving way beyond a threat feed or blocking at the perimeter based on static indicators. Fidelis is at the forefront of this evolution. I am thrilled to join the highly-experienced team here, where we have such strong technology supporting us and vision for the future.”

Source: Fidelis