In this episode of The BlueHat Podcast, host Nic Fillingham is joined by George Hughey from Microsoft who returns to discuss his Blue Hat India talk on variant hunting, explaining how MSRC uses submission data from hacking competitions like Pwn2Own and Tianfu Cup to uncover additional security vulnerabilities in Windows. George shares how incentives in competitions differ from bug bounty programs, how tools like CodeQL assist variant hunting, and why collaborating with the security research community is key to improving Windows security.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• How hacking competitions help find real-world Windows vulnerabilities
• The role of MSRC in hunting variants beyond submitted vulnerabilities
• Why fuzzing is not always effective for modern edge cases

Some Questions We Ask:

• How do you decide which cases to pursue for variant hunting?
• What advice do you have for researchers submitting variants?
• How does the CodeQL team collaborate with your team?

Resources:

View George Hughey on LinkedIn

View Wendy Zenone on LinkedIn

View Nic Fillingham on LinkedIn

Related Microsoft Podcasts:

• Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast
• Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson
• Uncovering Hidden Risks

Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at microsoft.com/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The BlueHat Podcast, host Nic Fillingham and Wendy Zenone are joined by Mike Macelletti from Microsoft’s MSRC Vulnerabilities and Mitigations team to explore Redirection Guard, a powerful mitigation designed to tackle a long-standing class of file path redirection vulnerabilities in Windows. Mike shares how his interest in security began, the journey behind developing Redirection Guard, and how it's helping reduce a once-common bug class across Microsoft products. He also explains how the feature works, why it's impactful, and what developers can do to adopt it. Plus, a few fun detours into Solitaire hacking, skiing, and protein powder.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• What Redirection Guard is and how it helps prevent file system vulnerabilities
• How Microsoft identifies and addresses common bug classes across their ecosystem
• Why some vulnerabilities still slip past Redirection Guard and what’s out of scope

Some Questions We Ask:

• What is a junction and how is it different from other redirects?
• How does Redirection Guard decide which shortcuts to block?
• Are there vulnerabilities Redirection Guard doesn’t cover?

Resources:

View Mike Macelletti on LinkedIn

View Wendy Zenone on LinkedIn

View Nic Fillingham on LinkedIn

Related Microsoft Podcasts:

• Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast
• Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson
• Uncovering Hidden Risks

Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at microsoft.com/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The BlueHat Podcast, host Nic Fillingham and Wendy Zenone share Ram Shankar Siva Kumar’s dynamic keynote from BlueHat India 2025, where he explores the evolving threat landscape of AI through the lens of the Microsoft AI Red Team. From adversarial machine learning to psychosocial harms and persuasive AI, Ram highlights real-world case studies, including prompt injection, content safety violations, and memory poisoning in AI agents. Ram underscores the urgent need for robust red teaming practices to secure AI systems against traditional security flaws and emerging threats across images, text, audio, and autonomous agents.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• Why old-school security flaws still break modern AI systems
• Real-world AI red teaming in action, from scams to memory hacks
• How small input tweaks can fool AI across images, audio, and text

Some Questions We Ask:

• Can attackers fool AI using just slight image changes?
• Are generative AI systems vulnerable to prompt manipulation?
• Do you need to be an expert to break an AI model?

Resources:

View Ram Shankar Siva Kumar on LinkedIn

View Wendy Zenone on LinkedIn

View Nic Fillingham on LinkedIn

Watch Ram’s BlueHat India 2025 Keynote: BlueHat India 2025 Day 2 Keynote - Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Listen to Ram’s Previous Appearance on The BlueHat Podcast: Not with a Bug but with a Sticker

Related Microsoft Podcasts:

• Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast
• Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson
• Uncovering Hidden Risks

Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at microsoft.com/podcasts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.