From Russian Olympic cyberattacks to billion-dollar North Korean malware, how one tech giant monitors nation-sponsored hackers everywhere on earth

John Lambert has been at Microsoft since 2000, when a new cybersecurity reality was first setting in both in Washington, DC, and at Microsoft’s Washington state headquarters.

Microsoft, then a singularly powerful company that monopolized PC software, had only relatively recently realized the importance of the internet. With Windows XP having conquered the world while remaining shockingly insecure, the team witnessed a series of enormous and embarrassing security failures, including self-replicating worms like Code Red and Nimda. The failures affected many of Microsoft’s huge numbers of government and private sector customers, endangering its core business. Not until 2002, when Bill Gates sent out his famous memo urging an emphasis on “trustworthy computing,” did Redmond finally begin to grapple with the importance of cybersecurity.

This is when Lambert became fascinated with the offensive side of cyber.

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