“Apple has quietly hired David Rice as its Global Director of Security, multiple insiders said on Saturday,” Electronista reports.
“The now former Monterey Group executive director built most of his experience as a cryptology officer in the US Navy and was also a Global Network Vulnerability analyst for the NSA,” Electronista reports. “AllThingsD noted that he might be best known in public for Geekonomics, a 2007 book that argued computer security vulnerabilities represented genuine threats to US infrastructure and that companies should be liable for the damage done by unpatched exploits.”
Electronista reports, “Exact plans for Rice weren’t mentioned by the tips, but an investigation of Rice’s colleagues and friends suggested he might help drive Apple’s recent push to gain legitimacy in enterprise. The new hire reportedly has both genuine knowledge as well as the ability to reassure a company CIO, a technique key to landing large corporate deals.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.,” “Arline M.,” and “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
“Loose lips sink ships”
I’m still waiting for the flood of viruses (virii?) that trolls to this site have been promising for literally the past four years. “Just wait until Apple has more than 5% of the market,” they’ve been saying. Well, Macs are near, or at, 10%, and 90% of all computers over $1,000.00. Still nothing.
And with this news, it looks like Apple isn’t waiting around, and that’s fantastic.
Apple’s next purchase will be a small bank for $1-2B. This way they can instantly have all the world-wide licences needed to quickly conduct micro-electronic transfers.
Welcome to the cashless society…
This may be days late, but it’s still some of the best news out of Cupertino since the Verizon iPhone announcement.
It will happen, but when is still up in the air. I don’t think it will be viruses. Unix has 3 times more files which in turn is more to attack. I think it will be application vulnerabilities. Java scripting, i-Frame redirects, and App zero days.
Just look at the iPhone jailbreak 3 months ago. Total and utter pwnage if the coder wanted to lay the hack into 3rd party ad servers for Mac geek websites. Mac geeks would of been pwned like grains of sand on a beach. And you guys would of said, ” Name the virus, come on! Not my Apple OS, it can’t be done because it has never happened before, it just can’t be done. It’s a Mac! “
You can sure say Apple hired great guy for the job. Read his book. I am so glad they did, because Apple and security are not synonymous. They sell their computers without the firewall enabled. Dumb-ass to say the least. That alone shows you their laissez–faire attitude to security.
The security gal from Mozila did not seem to change much with Apple and security. I sure hope Dave can change the laissez–faire attitude about security in all their OS’s and platforms.
Ok, tell me how safe OS X is with no one really attacking it yet.
@ted
all you got is they don’t ship each mac with the included firewall enabled?
The weakest link in any security is the end user. Always.
mac geeks would have been pwn3d like grains of sand on a beach!? bahaha.. absolutely the lamest analogy i’ve ever heard.
And FYI- that’s what you get for jail breaking w/o knowing wtf you are doing. Besides, iphone jail breaking isn’t the norm by any means.
wanna-be tough talk with zero substance.
What makes @ted think there are no attacks? Just because attacks are not successful, as they are on windoze, does not mean they did not happen.
The best analogy is the Cat that has Killed all the Rats and is accused of being lazy! See Warner Brothers Cartoon for an explanation at your level.
Oh, no! Rice is from da gub’mint! Apple is doomed! Doomed, I say! It’s the commies takin’ over Apple just like they did GM!</i>
You guys are so F’ en clueless. When the Russian mob wants to attack OS X on the net with all the “Mr Rogers” nieve Mac owners it is going to be a blood bath. You need to respect the Russian mobs skill level. They will show their face and you will have egg on yours!
OS X is nothing but code that has not been vetted with years of attacks, it will fall with a skilled Russian business network chipping away at it.
@dijonaise
You must be a liberal. I can tell by your comment.
puff puff pass… that thing ain’t a microphone!
But but… they just got rid of Xserves…
I’m intrigued by the Russian Mob comments. Does anyone know the warning signs that they are finally ready to reach out form their lairs and strike at OSX?
Will it be when Macs have 90.5% market share of computers over $1000 or will they wait for 90.6%?
What are they waiting for!? I NEED TO KNOW!
I sure want to have time to get rid of all my Macs before then!
It will really suck canal water to have to use Windows, so I want to wait as long as possible – but not too long!
Ted? Ted? Beuller? Beuller? Anyone?
Why does MDN insist on always using the word “quietly” to anything Apple does that doesn’t involve a Steve Jobs keynote? Do they think Apple is somehow trying to pull the wool over the eyes of other people in the industry?
This is about the 3rd or 4th story I’ve heard about this guy in the last week so how quietly could it be if i’m just some schlub surfing the internet. Certainly if this is a major strategic move, Apple’s competitors are aware of it.
The implication that this is some sort of clandestine hiring is just outright silly. But they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you darn meddling kids!
@HolyMackerel
I think Apple is already a lot closer to their own bank, if you consider how much money passes through iTunes, it’s not as far fetched as some might think.
@Ted
Not to nitpick, but laissez–faire doesn’t mean what I think you think it means.
I think the word you’re looking for is lackadaisical.
Laissez–faire means free markets without state intervention.
Hey, Ted! There is a psycho woman on the TV Two-and-a-Half Men who is perfect for you.
I’m not saying that it will never happen, because no OS is perfect. But Mac OS X has been awesomely secure for over 10 years.
Now lets think back to the early 1990s when the first “real” Windows became available – Windows 3.0. Then go forward through ten years of completely safe and virus free Windows bliss.
…wait a minute. There wasn’t 10 minutes of virus free bliss for Windows users during those ten years. Something must be wrong…Ted? Ted? What’s the deal? Go stalk some other site loser.
there were more viruses on os 7/8/9 than on os-x , well before the net took off
all this safety through obscurity myth is just that , a myth
50 million users
FIFTY MILLION
also macs aren’t cheap , that means mac users have money , and bank accounts etc
..SO ENTICING for the Russian hackers , eh ??
and not one mac hacked in the wild … NOT ONE
if there was , don’t you think dvorak etc would be shouting it from the rooftops ?
@ Macromancer
Not to nitpick, but laissez–faire doesn’t mean ONLY what you think it means.
@ aka Christian
“…trolls to this site have been promising for literally the past four years.”
Actually, they’ve been saying that since Apple switched from Mac OS 9.x to Mac OS X. They also claimed that back in the OS 7.x through 9.x days that the 42 (yes, 42) verified viruses on the Mac were equivalent to the 10s of thousands on the Windows side.
@ Ted
No one in their right mind on this or any other site has claimed, “‘ Name the virus, come on! Not my Apple OS, it can’t be done because it has never happened before, it just can’t be done. It’s a Mac! ‘”
No one is saying it can’t be done. No one is saying there will never be a true virus attacking Mac OS X. To make that claim is just plain STUPID. What Mac supporters ARE saying is that it is much, much more difficult to write a virus targeting Mac OS X itself.
“I think it will be application vulnerabilities.” So if there is a large gaping hole in Flash that’s Apple’s fault? Are you saying that it is Apple’s responsibility to fix that? Lay the responsibility for security at the doorstep of the developer. Apple is responsible for the OS and any apps it develops. It is NOT responsible for every non Apple application out there. Sure, Apple needs to develop tools and APIs in the OS that application developers can use to implement a reasonable level of security. However, it is NOT Apple’s job — and never will be Apple’s job — to make sure there are no vulnerabilities in every Mac OS compatible application out there.
“You guys are so F’ en clueless. When the Russian mob wants to attack OS X on the net with all the “Mr Rogers” nieve Mac owners it is going to be a blood bath. You need to respect the Russian mobs skill level. They will show their face and you will have egg on yours!”
Ah, yes. Let’s pull up some theoretical situation that might, or might not, happen some day, some time, in the future. Little green men from outerspace could find huge holes int he Mac OS too. It is just a relevant a statement.
And finally, iPhone jail broken phone vulnerabilities are Apple’s fault? How? Once someone has modified their iPhone to a configuration that Apple did not ship and did NOT authorize the introduced vulnerabilities are Apple’s fault how? This is no different than a person going in and hacking the OS on their Mac to remove certain safeguards then picking up something nasty then finally claiming the Mac OS is vulnerable. In a word: Bull!
@ Macromancer
Read the quote. It wasn’t MDN that used the term “quietly”. It was Electronista.
@Shadowself
MDN uses it rather frequently. That they picked up on it from Electronista is just an extension of their habit of using that term.
@Ted. Don’t you have your 7th-grade homework to do ?
@bjh
“”@Ted. Don’t you have your 7th-grade homework to do ?””
Another liberal posting. Your fervent liberalism is so becoming!