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How Microsoft's Windows Red Team Keeps PCs Safe (wired.com)
Wired has a story on Windows' red team, which consists of a group of hackers (one of whom jailbroke Nintendo handhelds in a former life, another has more than one zero-day exploit to his name, and a third signed on just prior to the devastating Shadow Brokers leak), who are tasked with finding holes in the world's most used desktop operating system. From the story: The Windows red team didn't exist four years ago. That's around the time that David Weston, who currently leads the crew as principal security group manager for Windows, made his pitch for Microsoft to rethink how it handled the security of its marquee product. "Most of our hardening of the Windows operating system in previous generations was: Wait for a big attack to happen, or wait for someone to tell us about a new technique, and then spend some time trying to fix that," Weston says. "Obviously that's not ideal when the stakes are very high."
[...] Together, the red teamers spend their days attacking Windows. Every year, they develop a zero-day exploit to test their defensive blue-team counterparts. And when emergencies like Spectre or EternalBlue happen, they're among the first to get the call. Again, red teams aren't novel; companies that can afford them -- and that are aware they could be targeted -- tend to use them. If anything, it may come as a surprise that Microsoft hadn't sicced one on Windows until so recently. Microsoft as a company already had several other red teams in place by the time Weston built one for Windows, though those focused more on operational issues like unpatched machines. "Windows is still the central repository of malware and exploits. Practically, there's so much business done around the world on Windows. The attacker mentality is to get the biggest return on investment in what you develop in terms of code and exploits," says Aaron Lint, who regularly works with red teams in his role as chief scientist at application protection provider Arxan. "Windows is the obvious target."
[...] Together, the red teamers spend their days attacking Windows. Every year, they develop a zero-day exploit to test their defensive blue-team counterparts. And when emergencies like Spectre or EternalBlue happen, they're among the first to get the call. Again, red teams aren't novel; companies that can afford them -- and that are aware they could be targeted -- tend to use them. If anything, it may come as a surprise that Microsoft hadn't sicced one on Windows until so recently. Microsoft as a company already had several other red teams in place by the time Weston built one for Windows, though those focused more on operational issues like unpatched machines. "Windows is still the central repository of malware and exploits. Practically, there's so much business done around the world on Windows. The attacker mentality is to get the biggest return on investment in what you develop in terms of code and exploits," says Aaron Lint, who regularly works with red teams in his role as chief scientist at application protection provider Arxan. "Windows is the obvious target."
I went out to *BSD's grave on Decoration Day. The old forgotten cemetery is by the dark woods beyond the edge of town. There within olfactory distance of the municipal treatment plant you will find *BSD's final resting place.
*BSD's tombstone was shrouded by thick mosses and knots of noxious ivy. I gently pulled aside the tangled twists of thorns, and cleaned the decaying marker the best I could. My melancholy thoughts pondered that this indeed was *BSDs figurative charnel house of which so many have plaintively spoken.
Nothing is so sad as an untended grave, a loved one now forgotten. The short sad life of a doomed and fated OS makes us realize that there but for the grace of God go all of us.
I planted some wilting marigolds which I had found discarded behind Bud's Garden Center. By some miracle perhaps they will take root and bring a modicum of cheer to that God forsaken plot. My freverant hope is that the torpid colored boy who carelessly mows the cemetery doesn't slice them down, mirroring *BSD own fate against death's irresistible scythe.
Funny how things work out. Linux, that brilliant novam stellam, now runs the Internet and the world's fastest computers, while *BSD lies moldering within its forgotten grave. Let the barren silence of *BSD's tomb be a mute reminder that hubris and braggadocio were no defense when the Angel of Death's bleak umbra fell upon *BSD.