Apple has hired former Microsoft and Mozilla security specialist Window Snyder to help secure its Mac ecosystem.

Snyder, who last worked as Mozilla's security chief, confirmed she is joining Apple as senior product manager for security.

At Mozilla, Snyder introduced the concept of threat modeling into the Firefox development process and spearheaded a metrics project to measure the effectiveness of the open source group's secure development efforts.

Prior to joining Mozilla, she worked on hardening Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Snyder is the second big-name hire for Apple's security department.  Last May, the company snagged former OLPC security chief Ivan Krstic to work on core Mac OS security.

Apple has struggled to cope with a sharp rise in security vulnerabilities in its software products and the annual embarrassment of seeing its Safari browser trivially hacked at the CanSecWest Pwn2Own contest.