Apple Hires Ex-Microsoft White Hat Hacker

It’s not just about creating great products. It’s also about hiring the best talented people to catapult your company into the top. Apple, for example, has hired former Microsoft white-hat hacker Kristin Paget. Paget, also known as Chris Paget, previously worked on Microsoft’s then-newest and most promising operating system – Windows Vista. According to Wired, Paget confirmed via email that she now works for Apple, but declined to detail her roles and responsibilities. But a quick look at her LinkedIn profile will reveal that currently Apple’s Core OS Security Researcher since September. 

It looks like Apple made the right choice to hire her. At the Black Hat Conference last year, just in time when Paget’s non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft expired, she revealed a slew of security flaws on the doomed Vista OS. “We prevented a lot of bugs from shipping on Vista. I’m proud of the number of bugs we found and helped get fixed,” Paget said.

Wired writes that Paget’s team was so successful that Microsoft had to delay the shipping date of Vista. They reportedly received special shirts from Microsoft that had the words “I delayed Windows Vista” on it. Apple declined to comment on the report. In April this year, Sophos said that one out of five Macs are infected with malware – Windows malware to be precise. Hackers are beginning to target Macs and iOS devices because of their popularity and high demand.

Gene Ryan Briones
Categories: Apple
Tags: Security