• Rhonda MacLean has been named director of IT security at Barclays. MacLean is the founder and former CEO of MacLean Risk Partners. Before that, she served as the head of Bank of America's Corporate Global Information Security Group.

  • PowerTech, provider of automated compliance and data privacy solutions for IBM mid-range servers, has named Roger Shanafelt as vice president of sales and business development. Shanafelt, who previously served as vice president of sales and marketing for DocuSign, will be responsible for identifying and developing new business opportunities in the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

  • Mycroft, provider of identity and access management solutions, and Talisen Technologies, maker of business process management products and managed infrastructure services, have merged. Combined, Mycroft Talisen will offer an integrated services suite leveraging Mycroft's assessment and implementation components with Talisen's management and support capabilities.

  • Palo Alto Networks, maker of next-generation firewalls for application control and visibility, has launched after earning $18 million in Series B funding. The company was founded by Nir Zuk, who previously served at CTO of NetScreen Technologies (now owned by Juniper Networks) and as principal engineer of Check Point Software Technologies.

  • Digital Envoy, the parent company of Digital Resolve, provider of online authentication and fraud detection software, has been acquired by Landmark Communications, a media company that owns such properties as The Weather Channel and CBS affiliates in Nashville, Tenn. and Las Vegas. Landmark's strategy is to acquire online service providers capable of significant growth.

  • BreakingPoint Systems, provider of network test equipment solutions, has launched. The Austin, Texas-based company was founded in 2005 by a group of high-speed network device creators. BreakingPoint's first product is a hardware-based multi-gigabit testing solution for content-aware networks. Des Wilson is the company's CEO, and the staff includes noted security researcher H.D. Moore.

  • NSS Labs, an independent security product testing and certification vendor, has relocated its corporate headquarters to the U.S. and has grown its senior management team. The company now will operate from Chicago and San Diego. Vikram Phatak will serve as chairman and chief executive officer, Matt Harrigan will assume the role of president, and Rick Moy, formerly VP of marketing at ESET, will take over as chief marketing officer.

  • Gregory Wood has been named CISO at Washington Mutual. He will be responsible for the bank's security strategy and architecture. Wood previously served as CTO of BioPassword, provider of biometrics authentication solutions. He also is a Microsoft veteran, having served there as general manager of corporate and information security.

  • Varonis Systems, producer of data governance software, has opened a headquarters in the United States. Solutions from the New York-base company offer organizations visibility over their data, allowing them to perform risk-based management and analysis. Varonis, with a research arm in Israel, has about 65 customers and has completed around 200 installations.