BusinessKeith Alexander turns government experience into lucrative private sector career

Cybersecurity industry insiders are questioning the ethics behind recently retired NSA chief Keith Alexander’s decision to launch IronNet Cybersecurity, a private consultancy, equipped with patents for what he refers to as a game-changing cybersecurity model. As head of the NSA, Alexander had access to America’s most classified information on cyberwarfare and he spent years warning the private industry about cyberthreats. Profiting from his experience at the NSA has raised an alarm with many who ask why he failed to deploy his new ideas during his tenure at the NSA.

Alexander, who also led the military’s Cyber Command, insists that his transition to the private sector is nothing out of the ordinary. “If I retired from the Army as a brain surgeon, wouldn’t it be OK for me to go into private practice and make money doing brain surgery?” ABC News last week quoted him saying in an interview. “I’m a cyber guy. Can’t I go to work and do cyber stuff?”

IronNet Cybersecurity has already secured contracts with three clients and it is currently developing about ten patents. Innovations in the new patents came from an unidentified partner and are not specifically based on knowledge gained during Alexander’s position at the NSA or Cyber Command. As NSA director, Alexander filed three patents, which he notes, belongs to the federal government.

“Actually knowing something about cybersecurity is a rare commodity,” said James Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “He’s got the skills and he’s trying to figure out how to monetize them. It’s hardly unusual.”

While there may be ethical concerns, the legality of Alexander’s new venture has been confirmed by the NSA and his private lawyers— including former FBI director Robert Mueller, now with the WilmerHale law firm in Washington, D.C.“I’ve been in government for 40 years; I fully understand the importance and sanctity of classified material,” said Alexander.

Alexander has denied reports of his firm charging $1 million a month for consulting services. “That number was inflated from the beginning,” he said, but he acknowledged that if his firm perfects what he calls a new behavioral model to detect sophisticated hackers who attack with previously unidentified patterns, his firm stands to succeed financially.

Former high level government officials have ventured into the private sector. Alexander’s predecessor, Michael Hayden, is a consultant with Chertoff Group, the security consulting and private equity firm led by Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security chief, who is also working with Alexander on IronNet. Another former NSA director Vice Admiral Michael McConnell, has earned more than $1 million a year in recent years as vice chairman of intelligence contractor Booz Allen.

Alexander’s colleagues in his new venture includes former NSA adviser James Heath, and Russell Richardson, a former Army intelligence official. Former NSA deputy director, John “Chris” Inglis, is working part time with the venture.