FireEye, Inc. has named David DeWalt as the company's new chief executive officer, expanding upon DeWalt's previous role as the company's chairman of the board.

Founder and previous CEO Ashar Aziz now assumes the roles of vice chairman, chief technology officer and chief strategy officer.

DeWalt comes to the table with more than 25 years of industry experience and has established a solid track record in the security space, in particular. He previously served as president, CEO and director of McAfee, Inc. He was also appointed by President Obama to serve on the National Security Technology Advisory Council.

[Related: FireEye Study: Evasive Malware Rises Nearly 400 Percent]

"Dave has an incredible track record of leading and growing successful technology companies, and his guidance on our board of directors has been invaluable," said Aziz in a prepared statement. "The combination of his leadership, operational experience, and industry expertise will without a doubt help usher FireEye into the next stage of its growth and expansion on a global scale. We welcome him to the leadership team."

FireEye specializes in security against zero-day exploits and APT attacks that bypass traditional defenses. The product line includes signature-based firewalls, IPS, anti-virus and gateways in addition to cross-enterprise, signature-less protection against Web and email threat vectors as well as malware resident on file shares.

The Milpitas, Calif.-based company claims more than 800 enterprise and government customers, including nearly one-third of the Fortune 100.

PUBLISHED NOV. 29, 2012