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Former MS Security Strategist Joins Mozilla

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jumping-the-fence dept.

Handset writes "Former Microsoft security strategist Window Snyder is joining Mozilla to lead the company's effort to protect its range of desktop applications from malicious hacker attacks. eweek.com reports that Snyder, who was responsible for security sign-off for Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003, will spearhead Mozilla's security strategy and improve its communications with external hackers and bug finders."

3 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. I can't wait to see this thread... by pookemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Will the Mozilla fans throw their arms up in disgust (An MS Security expert - that's a contradiction!) or will they suddenly be supportive of someone they have effectively been bagging for years? (An MS Security expert for Mozilla! - what a coup!)

    --
    dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
  2. So... by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We can draw two possible conclusions from this. Either a: MS' security team was made of good people who were doing the best they could for such a large project with such a large user base and extensive backwards compatability, and thus that Windows security was the best it could have been (even if that wasn't so good). Or Mozilla's security is going to go down the tubes. It's a slashdot paradox! Clearly we can't grant #1, because that wouldn't be sufficiently critical of MS, but be can't grant #2 either because we love Mozilla. I'm just glad Mozilla doesn't think this way.

    --

    Philosophy.
  3. Window is great, but MS security still miserable by fv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So the security world used to be pretty hostile to MS, before, you know, XPSP2, MSRC got taken seriously, etc.

    Used to be? Maybe you see a different view of them when they hire you for security consulting and fly you out for their Blue Hat conferences and such. But from my outsider perspective, Microsoft is still a security disaster. Not only have we continued to see hundreds of serious vulnerabilities throughout 2006, but MS has in many cases made us wait weeks or months before patching widely exploited bugs. Heck, another actively exploited MS Office vulnerability was just discovered in the wild. If we're lucky, MS will cough up a patch on September 12, otherwise they'll probably leave users vulnerable until the next "patch Tuesday" on October 10.

    Meanwhile, Microsoft recently re-issued MS06-042 with a fix for a vulnerability introduced by their first attempted fix. And they openly admit that they excluded eEye from the advisory credits because eEye embarrassed MS by making their incompetence public. MS is more interested in petty vendetas against researches than actually fixing the flaws.

    Microsoft has made a few positive steps toward securing their products in that last couple of years, but I think most of their efforts and successes are more in the PR realm than anything with technical merit. They have spent so much money sponsoring conferences (their money does come with strings attached) and paying off security researches, that many people seem reluctant to criticize them.

    OK, enough anti-MS ranting from me for now :). My main point in replying is actually to agree with you about Window. She is extremely smart and talented, and her defection to Mozilla is great news for a product which really needs more security attention. We had lunch last week to discuss Mozilla security and Window has some great ideas. Mozilla may already be much more secure than IE, but we should set a much higher bar than that! Best of luck at your new position, Window!

    -Fyodor
    Insecure.Org