Antivirus Researcher Gullotto of Symantec is Now With Microsoft
Microsoft has hired one of the industry’s top antivirus researchers to run its nascent antivirus research and response team.Vinny Gullotto, who had been at Symantec Corp. since earlier this year, started work at Microsoft last week. His charge at Microsoft will be to help the software giant get its virus response team up to speed with those run by the major antivirus vendors.
Gullotto will be the general manager of Security Research and Response, a separate unit from the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC); both teams fall under Microsoft’s Security Technology Unit.
Gullotto has more than a decade of experience in the antivirus industry, and has been well-traveled as of late. Until late 2005, he was the vice president of McAfee Inc.’s Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team (AVERT). He left McAfee to join Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec this past spring and helped run its well-known Symantec Security Response unit.
He is one of a handful of virus researchers, including David Perry at Trend Micro Inc., Vincent Weafer at Symantec and Nick FitzGerald of Computer Virus Consulting, who have been at the forefront of antivirus research during the last decade.
This move has ruffled a lot of feathers among the antivirus vendor community, most of whom have been Microsoft partners for years. Hiring Gullotto away from Symantec is unlikely to smooth any of those bad feelings.
Gullotto is not the only high-profile security researcher that Microsoft has hired lately. Adam Shostack, a well-known security and privacy expert and author who worked at pioneering privacy-software developer Zero-Knowledge Systems, joined Microsoft in June and is working on the Security Development Lifecycle, a set of software design theories designed to help developers build software that can withstand attacks.
But that is not all. The maker of some of the most popular Windows tools for IT administrators is now part of Microsoft.
Microsoft said last July that it acquired Winternals Software LP, a privately held company that provides Windows-based systems recovery and data protection products. Based in Austin, Texas, Winternals has about 85 employees.
Also part of the deal was the acquisition of the Winternals Web site, called Sysinternals, a popular destination for Windows users that includes forums, blogs and free software tools. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Microsoft said it was the technical expertise of Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell — who co-founded Winternals in 1996 — as well as the Sysinternals Web site that prompted it to make the acquisition.
Now Microsoft employees, the pair will focus on helping Microsoft improve Windows, the company said.
Russinovich will be one of 15 Microsoft technical fellows, an executive-level position in which he will work with many teams in the company. Cogswell will become a software architect in the Windows component platform team.