Updated: September 17, 2009

Scott Charney serves as Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing, Engineering Excellence, and Environmental Sustainability. Trustworthy Computing is Microsoft's effort to help ensure secure, private and reliable computing experiences for everyone. As part of this effort, the Trustworthy Computing team works with business groups throughout the company to ensure their products and services adhere to Microsoft's security and privacy policies. It also engages with governments, industry partners, and computer users on important security and privacy issues such as critical infrastructure protection, software assurance, and identity management. Engineering Excellence is responsible for supporting Microsoft's engineering community by providing Microsoft engineers with learning and development opportunities, as well as by discovering and propagating engineering best practices across the company and into the IT ecosystem. Finally, Environmental Sustainability focuses on using the power of software to help reduce mankind's impact on the environment, as well as managing Microsoft's own environmental footprint.

Before joining Microsoft in 2002, Charney was a principal for the professional services organization PricewaterhouseCoopers. At PricewaterhouseCoopers he led the firm's Cybercrime Prevention and Response Practice, providing computer security services to Fortune 500 companies and smaller enterprises. Before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers, he served as Chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. As the leading federal prosecutor for computer crimes from 1991 to 1999, he helped prosecute major hacker cases and co-authored numerous documents, including the Federal Guidelines for Searching and Seizing Computers, the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996, the federal computer crime sentencing guidelines, and the Criminal Division's policy on appropriate computer use and workplace monitoring. He also chaired the Group of Eight nations Subgroup on High-Tech Crime, served as Vice Chair and Head of the U.S. delegation to the Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Global Cryptography Policy for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was a member of the U.S. delegation to the OECD's Group of Experts on Security, Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights in the Global Information Infrastructure, and was a member of the Clinton Administration's Information Infrastructure Task Force, serving on the Privacy Working Group that published principles for handling personally identifiable information.

Charney started his professional career as an Assistant District Attorney in Bronx County, New York, ultimately serving as Deputy Chief of the Investigations Bureau. In addition to supervising 23 prosecutors, he developed a computer-tracking system that was later used throughout the city for tracking criminal cases.

Charney has received numerous professional awards, including the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement in 1995 and the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 1998. He was elected to the Information Systems Security Association Hall of Fame in 1999. Among his other affiliations, he served on the American Bar Association Task Force on Electronic Surveillance, the Software Engineering Institute Advisory Board at Carnegie-Mellon University, and the Defense Science Board Task Force on Mission Impact of Foreign Influence on DoD Software. He currently co-chairs the CSIS Commission on Cyber Security.

Charney holds a law degree with honors from Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., and bachelor degrees in History and English from the State University of New York in Binghamton.

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Recent Speeches

RSA Conference 2009
April 21, 2009

Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security
March 10, 2009

Testimony for U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection
Nov. 19, 2003

Testimony for U.S. House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities
July 24, 2003