When people first started making software, computers were relatively rare and there was no internet, so programming languages were designed to get the job done quickly and run efficiently, with little thought for security. But software is everywhere now, from our desktops to our cars, from the cloud to the internet of things. That’s why Dr. Jonathan Protzenko, a researcher in the RiSE – or Research in Software Engineering – group at Microsoft Research, is working on designing better software tools in order to make our growing software ecosystem safer and more secure.

Today, Dr. Protzenko talks about what’s wrong with software (and why it’s vitally important to get it right), explains why there are so many programming languages (and tells us about a few he’s been working on), and finally, acts as our digital Sherpa for Project Everest, an assault on software integrity and confidentiality that aims to build and deploy a verified HTTPS stack.