The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has hired former Uber executive and top engineer Raffi Krikorian in an effort to improve its technology, according to a new report by Recode.
Multiple sources confirmed to the site Wednesday that the DNC hired Krikorian to be its chief technology officer in an effort to improve its cyber defenses, to reach more voters and to prevent major information breaches such as the Russian-supported email hack that infiltrated Democrats during the 2016 election.
{mosads}Krikorian served as the senior director of engineering at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh until his departure in February. During his time at Uber, Krikorian served as the top engineer on the company’s self-driving car project.
DNC Chairman Tom Perez previously told Politico in January that the party needed an in-house chief cybersecurity officer who would be a lookout for attacks on the DNC, and work with state partners in a similar manner.
A major hack of the DNC during the 2016 election led to the leak of hundreds of emails from top officials to WikiLeaks. Those leaks surfaced amid controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of State, a choice that critics said endangered national security.