Mark Russinovich
Born 1966 · Age 59
Spanish-born American software engineer, author, cofounder of Winternals and creator of Sysinternals utilities; Technical Fellow/CTO for Microsoft Azure and author of nonfiction and techno-thrillers.
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Life & Career Timeline
Birth in Salamanca, Spain
Mark Eugene Russinovich was born in Salamanca, Spain.
Reverse-engineered Apple II ROM
Early exposure to an Apple II led him to reverse-engineer the ROM and write programs (late 1970s/early 1980s).
Family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Moved with his family from Birmingham, Alabama to Pittsburgh at about age 15.
Bought first computer (TI-99/4A)
At age 15 bought a TI-99/4A home computer, beginning serious interest in programming.
Acquired Apple II+
About six months after the TI-99/4A, his parents purchased him an Apple II+ from his local high school.
Published Apple II magazine articles
Wrote and published articles about the Apple II in computer magazines (mid-1980s).
Earned BS in Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon
Graduated with a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University; member of Pi Kappa Alpha Beta Sigma chapter.
Earned MS in Computer Engineering, RPI
Received a Master of Science degree in computer engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon
Awarded Ph.D.; dissertation 'Application-Transparent Fault Management' supervised by Zary Segall.
Research Associate at University of Oregon
Joined the University of Oregon computer science department as a research associate (Sep 1994–Feb 1996).
Cofounded Winternals Software and Sysinternals.com
Co-founded Winternals Software and the Sysinternals web site with Bryce Cogswell; became Chief Software Architect.
Discovered Windows NT Workstation-to-Server registry tweak
Demonstrated altering two registry values allowed Windows NT Workstation to be recognized as Server by BackOffice installers (public disclosure 1996).
Released core Sysinternals utilities
Developed and published utilities including Process Explorer, FileMon, RegMon, Autoruns, TCPView, RootkitRevealer and more (began 1996 onward).
Developer at NuMega Technologies
Worked on performance-monitoring software for Windows NT (Feb 1996–Sep 1996).
Consulting Associate at OSR Open Systems Resources
Worked as a consulting associate at OSR (Sep 1996–Sep 1997).
Published 'Inside NT's Scheduler' Part 1
Article in Windows IT Pro on NT scheduling internals (July 1997).
Published 'Inside NT's Scheduler' Part 2
Second part of the Scheduler articles in Windows IT Pro (Aug 1997).
Research Staff at IBM Watson Research Center
Joined IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center researching OS support for Web server acceleration (Sep 1997–Mar 2000).
Published 'Inside NT's Object Manager'
Article in Windows IT Pro describing internals of NT's Object Manager (Oct 1997).
Published 'NT vs. UNIX' article
Article 'NT vs. UNIX: Is One Substantially Better' in Windows IT Pro (Dec 1998).
Published 'Inside Encrypting File System' Parts 1 and 2
Two-part series on EFS published in Windows IT Pro (June 1999).
Released LiveKD utility (bundled with book)
Authored LiveKD, a utility included with Inside Windows 2000 that runs kernel debuggers locally.
Co-authored 'Inside Microsoft Windows 2000' (3rd ed.)
Third edition of Inside Windows 2000 published, included LiveKD utility on its CD-ROM.
Published 'Microsoft Windows Internals' (4th ed.)
Co-author of Windows Internals, Fourth Edition (Dec 8, 2004).
Discovered Sony DRM rootkit
Using RootkitRevealer technology, discovered a hidden rootkit in Sony DRM products that hid files and processes.
Discovered Symantec's Norton rootkit
Identified rootkit-like behavior in Symantec Norton SystemWorks; Symantec later removed the component.
Analyzed Windows Metafile (WMF) vulnerability
Concluded the WMF vulnerability was not a deliberate backdoor after detailed analysis (Jan 2006 blog analysis).
Microsoft acquired Winternals; joined Microsoft
Microsoft acquired Winternals Software and its products; Russinovich joined Microsoft as part of the acquisition (2006).
Microsoft TechEd presentations
Delivered multiple TechEd presentations and videos in Nov 2006, including 'Windows Vista Kernel Changes' and 'Advanced Malware Cleaning'.
Published 'Inside the Windows Vista Kernel' Part 1
TechNet Magazine article about Windows Vista kernel internals (Feb 2007).
Published 'Inside the Windows Vista Kernel' Part 2
Second installment on Vista kernel internals in TechNet Magazine (Mar 2007).
Published 'Inside the Windows Vista Kernel' Part 3
Third installment on Vista kernel internals in TechNet Magazine (Apr 2007).
Published 'Inside Windows Vista User Account Control'
Article in TechNet Magazine about User Account Control internals (June 2007).
Contributed to MinWin kernel for Windows 7
Played a pivotal role in crafting the 'MinWin' component which was integrated into Windows 7 (development timeframe ~2008–2009).
Published 'Microsoft Windows Internals' (5th ed.)
Co-author of the Fifth Edition of Windows Internals (June 17, 2009).
Channel 9 videos on Windows memory management
Published 'Mysteries of Windows Memory Management Revealed' Parts 1 & 2 on Channel 9 (Oct 2010).
Published novel 'Zero Day: A Novel'
Debut techno-thriller novel 'Zero Day' published by Thomas Dunne Books; foreword by Howard Schmidt.
Published 'Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference'
Co-authored administrator's reference on Sysinternals tools (July 12, 2011).
Published 'Microsoft Windows Internals, Part 1' (6th ed.)
Co-author of Windows Internals, Part 1 (April 5, 2012).
Published short story 'Operation Desolation'
Short story set after Zero Day (Aug 7, 2012).
Published novel 'Trojan Horse'
Second techno-thriller novel published (Sep 4, 2012) with foreword by Kevin Mitnick.
Published 'Microsoft Windows Internals, Part 2' (6th ed.)
Co-author of Windows Internals, Part 2 (Oct 2, 2012).
Published novel 'Rogue Code'
Third novel in Jeff Aiken series addressing NYSE vulnerabilities; foreword by Haim Bodek (May 20, 2014).
Spoke at IP EXPO Europe on cloud security
Video of talk 'Public Cloud Security: Surviving in a Hostile Multitenant Environment – Mark Russinovich, CTO, Microsoft Azure' (Oct 2014).
Published 'Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals Tools'
Co-authored Microsoft Press book on Sysinternals troubleshooting tools (Oct 17, 2016).
Listed as Azure CTO & Technical Fellow
Identified by MIT Technology Review and other sources as Azure CTO and Technical Fellow at Microsoft (as of 2021).
Speaker: Future of the Cloud conference
Speaker at 'Future Compute' 2021 and other major conferences (Microsoft Ignite, Build, RSA).
LiveKD utility archival availability noted
LiveKd noted as readily available to download (archive snapshot Mar 23, 2021).
Profiled in Serverspace feature article
Featured article 'Mark Russinovich — The Man Who Knows Everything About Windows' (Serverspace, Sep 26, 2023).
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