Apple hires former Windows hacker to work on core security

According to Wired, Apple has hired Kristin Paget, a former independent contractor at Microsoft, to be part of Apple's security team.

Just over five years ago, she was part of a small team of elite hackers brought in by Microsoft to lock down Windows Vista.

Her LinkedIn profile now displays her job title as "Core OS Security Researcher at Apple."
Paget, who used to go by the name Chris, has lots of experience in the field. 
While mostly under non-disclosure agreements ("NDA," for obvious reasons) she spoke about her Windows Vista hacking at Black Hat 2011 in Las Vegas when the agreement expired:

“We prevented a lot of bugs from shipping on Vista,” Paget said, according to a recording of her talk. “I’m proud of the number of bugs we found and helped get fixed.”

In fact, she was so successful in her Windows bug tracking that she actually caused Vista's release to be delayed. She even received a special t-shirt signed by Microsoft Vice President of Windows Development Brian Valentine that read "I delayed Windows Vista."
Apple's days of security by obscurity days are clearly over. In April it was revealed over 600,000 Macs were infected with malware. Apple added malware protection to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard starting in 2009 and Paget's hiring is a great sign that the company is taking security seriously.


ZDNet