According to AllThingsD Apple has hired David Rice as their new Global Security Director. A 1994 graduate of the US Naval Academy with a masters in Warfare and Systems engineering, he's worked for the NSA, the US Cyber Consequences Unit, and Neohapsis. He's also the author of the book Geekonomics:
In it he argues that software is modern infrastructure–just like a bridge (hence, the picture on the cover)– and if it’s poorly made or insecure, it constitutes a public hazard.
Those who buy software–consumers, corporations and governments–end up being “crash test dummies” for an industry with no accountability for losses incurred by their customers, he argues.
Rice joins Window Snyder, former head of security at Mozilla, Ivan Krstic, former head of security at One Laptop per Child, and Jon Calla, former CTO of PGP among Apple's recent security hires.
Based on his background, it seems his "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" view would entail making Apple software more secure so they'll waste less money on patching security exploits later. That's good news for Mac and iOS users when it comes to protecting us from malicious exploits like viruses, especially as Apple's market share increases and they become a larger target. It's not great for Jailbreak users who depend on the non-malicious exploits to gain root access to their iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad in order to customize and run apps beyond what Apple allows.
[AllThingsD, thanks Anthony!]
