Intel Names Window Snyder as Chief Software Security Officer

Famed security expert Window Snyder will join Intel next month as its chief software security officer and vice president and general manager of the Intel Platform Security Division.

Snyder, who most recently served as chief security officer at Fastly, is best known for quietly leading Apple's efforts to up its security game, as well as for her earlier role as senior security analyst at Microsoft, where she headed up the Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 security initiatives. She also led Mozilla to adopt its secure coding and vulnerability discovery and patching processes during her stint there as a chief security executive.

The addition of industry veteran Snyder appears to further demonstrate Intel's commitment to double down on the security of its software and products after a rocky year. 

Indeed, Intel has been under fire for major security vulnerabilities exposed in its microprocessor products — pressure that came to a head with the discovery of the so-called Meltdown and Spectre hardware vulnerabilities that allow for so-called side-channel attacks in most of its modern processors. With Meltdown, sensitive information in the kernel memory is at risk of being accessed nefariously; with Spectre, a user application can read the kernel memory as well as that of another application.

The end result: An attacker can read sensitive system memory containing passwords, encryption keys, and emails — and use that information to help craft a local attack.

In a blog post today announcing Snyder's new position at Intel, Doug Fisher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Services Group, said Snyder will head up the company's security product road map and continue its efforts to work with partners and the security industry.

"I am looking forward to Window leveraging her experience in the community and bringing further valuable industry insight into Intel's hardware-enabled security solutions," Fisher wrote.

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