Laying Off Five Security Staffers, Patreon Disputes Reports It's Their Entire Security Team

Patreon has confirmed it laid off five of its security team employees, TechCrunch reports, "but declined to answer our questions, or say how many employees it had on the security team prior to the layoffs." But while a former senior security engineer posted on LinkedIn that "I and the rest of the Patreon Security Team are no longer with the company," Patreon's U.S. policy head, Ellen Satterwhite told Gizmodo that "a majority of our engineers working on security and vendors remain in place.""As part of a strategic shift of a portion of our security program, we have parted ways with five employees," said Patreon in an emailed statement attributed to the company's U.S. policy head, Ellen Satterwhite.... In response to further questions, Satterwhite also said "the entire internal Patreon security team was not laid off. As a matter of policy, we can't share the exact number of Patreon employees working on security, but can confirm a majority of Patreon's internal engineers working on security remain in place...." Satterwhite noted that "we also partner with a number of external organizations to continuously develop our security capabilities and conduct regular security assessments." The reference to "external organizations" seemingly suggests that the company has outsourced much of its security operations. "As a global platform, we will always prioritize the security of our creators' and customers' data," wrote Satterwhite. "The changes made this week will have no impact on our ability to continue providing a secure and safe platform for our creators and patrons."

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