Retired U.S. Admiral William Fallon has spent the past year working to turn around a high-tech start-up that sells software that helps government agencies and businesses fight sophisticated cyber attacks.

The 18-employee firm, CounterTack, underwent a restructuring during his tenure.

My focus was trying to keep us alive, Fallon said in an interview.

But he said the pieces are now coming together.

The company on Thursday announced $9.5 million in Series A financing in a round led by Fairhaven Capital.

It also hired a new executive team, naming Neal Creighton as CEO. Creighton was a co-founder and CEO of a digital security company known as GeoTrust.

Fallon - who resigned as commander of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 after a magazine reported he was critical of President George W. Bush's policy toward Iran - will serve as chairman of the revamped company.

CounterTack sells products that monitor computer networks for malicious activity so that businesses and government agencies can identify malware that has made its way past firewalls and antivirus software.

The ability to see in-progress attacks is what distinguishes our products, he said.

The technology helps investigators track the activities of malware, making it easier to identify perpetrators and their motives, he said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Afghanistan Iraq George W. Bush Cybercrime