Microsoft names chief security strategist

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft Corp. on Thursday named a new chief security

strategist to replace the outgoing security executive who is headed to

Washington, DC

Microsoft's new security chief is Scott Charney, a principal for

PricewaterhouseCoopers' cybercrime prevention unit. He was chief of the computer

crime and intellectual property unit at the US Department of Justice from 1991

to 1999.

Charney, who starts April 1, replaces Howard Schmidt, whose last day was

Monday, a Microsoft spokeswoman said. Schmidt worked at Microsoft for 54 months,

she said. Schmidt is leaving to work for Richard Clarke, chairman of President

George W. Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, the spokeswoman

confirmed.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius refused to confirm or deny the information

on Schmidt. The personnel moves come two weeks after Microsoft went public with

a plan to make security a priority in its products.

In an e-mail sent to all Microsoft employees which was then released to the

media, chairman Bill Gates said focusing on security was vital to the success of

the company's new .NET Web-based services initiative. The company has long been

criticized for rushing feature-rich software out to the market at the expense of

security, leaving holes that put computer users at risk of attack from malicious

hackers and viruses.

Charney's responsibility will be to develop ways to improve the security of

Microsoft products and services. At PricewaterhouseCoopers, he helped large

corporations establish security systems and conduct cybercrime investigations,

Microsoft said.

Before joining Microsoft, Schmidt was a supervisory special agent and

director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Computer Forensic

Lab and Computer Crime and Information Warfare, and a computer forensic

specialist at the FBI's National Drug Intelligence Center.

(C) Reuters Limited.