Window Snyder, Mozilla security executive helping to keep Firefox users safe

For months I’ve championed Mozilla’s Firefox as my internet browser of choice. So you can imagine how excited I was when I read an article in USA Today touting Window Snyder’s role in the release of Mozilla’s Firefox 3 Web Browser.

Read “Geek” girl helps keep Mozilla safe in scary times

Snyder serves as Chief of Security for Mozilla, though her official title is chief security something-or-other which is displayed on her business card. Here are some highlights from the USA Today article:

• In setting out to elevate Firefox’s basic security, Snyder is also compelling Microsoft and Apple, maker of the Safari browser, to follow her lead — or get out of the way.

• “The fun is in deconstructing where the security holes are,” Snyder, 32, says with a wry smile and knowing laugh.

  But don’t let her youthful facade fool you. Snyder’s career path includes co-founding a security company and consultant work at At Stake, which was sold to Symantec for $49 million in 2004.

• Dave Goldsmith, who as president of Matasano Security has worked with Snyder in various capacities, calls her an “online security rock star.”

  Adds Eva Chen, CEO and co-founder of security company Trend Micro: “It’s gratifying to see other women in prominent roles in tech security. For so long, men have dominated the field. Women didn’t have an old boy’s network.”

• A self-avowed “geek girl” and daughter of software engineers, Snyder says her mom taught her to program Basic, an early computer programming language, on a Texas Instruments PC when she was 5 years old.

Big ups to Window Snyder, doing it big at the world of internet security.  I guess I’ve got to get my son some computer programming classes, he’s (6) behind.