Rumors are flying that Maureen Govern, CTO of AOL, has left her post as a result of the search results exposure two weeks ago. I noted that she has unceremoniously disappeared from their “Who’s Who” page. Here is an excerpt from the old lineup, prior to today’s change. Hope this is ok to post for reference:

The current page is here for comparison. Her bio used to be available, but it has also been removed:

https://www.corp.aol.com/whoweare/whoswho/govern.shtml

Not even a redirect? I get a 404 error. And is it really necessary for AOL to advertise “Apache 1.3.33” on their 404 pages? (1.3.37 is the current legacy version)

Anyway, she was named CTO in 2005. I could not help but notice that information security was not mentioned in her bio or her hire announcement. Will this incident lead AOL to hire a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) or at least put someone on the board with security expertise? Privacy boards are good, but will the CTO be more formally challenged with security concerns or is that someone else’s bailiwick? Here’s how the CEO described her when she was hired:

She has the critical combination of wireline and wireless, service provider and manufacturer, network and back-office experience to help us build and transition our infrastructure to meet the demands of the changing marketplace.

Pretty vague, but you still should see something more like “and ensure the safety…” if you want to hint that security is an explicit part of the job responsibilities, no?

EDITED TO ADD (8/21): Emergent Chaos has posted more details on who has been let go from AOL.