The BlueHat Podcast

About The BlueHat Podcast

Since 2005, BlueHat has been where the security research community, and Microsoft, come together as peers; to debate, discuss, share, challenge, celebrate and learn. On The BlueHat Podcast, Microsoft and MSRC’s Nic Fillingham and Wendy Zenone will host conversations with researchers and industry leaders, both inside and outside of Microsoft, working to secure the planet’s technology and create a safer world for all.

Publisher

Microsoft

Category

technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 May 2023

Latest episode

9 Jul 2025

Latest episodes

21 of 59 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   9 Jul 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Hunting Variants: Finding the Bugs Behind the Bug

   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 The BlueHat Podcast is produced by Microsoft and distributed as part of N2K media network.

2. 

   25 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Securing Redirections with Mike Macelletti

   Mike Macelletti from Microsoft's MSRC explains to hosts Nic Fillingham and Wendy Zenone how Redirection Guard mitigates file path redirection vulnerabilities in Windows, reducing a common bug class across Microsoft products in this interview.

3. 

   11 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Ignore Ram Shankar Siva Kumar’s Previous Directions

   Ram Shankar Siva Kumar delivers a keynote at BlueHat India 2025, exploring AI's evolving threat landscape through Microsoft AI Red Team's lens, highlighting the need for red teaming practices to secure AI systems; Nic Fillingham and Wendy Zenone host this interview.

Inside a recent episode

Hunting Variants: Finding the Bugs Behind the Bug

Published 9 Jul 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] So sometimes we do get reports where it looks like we're trying to duplicate something, but that's not what we're trying to do in the vast majority of cases. We're trying to really incentivize getting these different variant cases because that's what shows us something interesting about an attack surface. And that's really the end goal of the bounty program, right? It's not an individual vulnerability from our side that we're interested in. It's what does this research tell us about this attack surface? Or what does this research tell us about windows or a larger ecosystem that then we can go and do more work and invest more resources in? […]

Who has been a guest on The BlueHat Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Mike Macelletti
• Ram Shankar Siva Kumar
• David Weston
• Felix Boulet

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

551,339

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.1 / 5

12 ratings

Spotify

4.6 / 5

11 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 82 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

88

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

95

Contact The BlueHat Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about The BlueHat Podcast