The extraordinary things I’ve done and seen – in the year of the Lord of twenty-nineteen!

Hi folks, and – belatedly – Happy New Year!

Trust you all had happy, jolly, merry holidays. I sure did!…

All righty. Let’s get on… by looking back.

So, as per usual on these here blogpages of mine around this time of year, herewith, my round-up of last year: a summary of the facts and figures and countries and flights and tourisms and volcanoes and excursions and monasteries and walkabouts and treks and all the rest; woah – already for the sixth time (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)!

But… why?

Well, over-self-indulgence plays a part, for sure (especially when it comes to things like my total number of flights and other stats:). However, I’m lucky enough to travel to and experience a lot of highly interesting places/stuff, which I’m fairly certain will be of interest to some of you, dear readers. And you might not have read every post of the year (there are a lot of them). Accordingly, surely, a pint-sized review of the ‘greatest hits’ of the year (including ringing in the New Year in the Ecuadorian mountains in a hot-spring swimming-pool some 3600 meters above sea level!) will be worth something? I hope so, anyway. OK, so – ~rationale out the way, let’s get on with this…

The just-mentioned hot springs in Ecuador:

South America is a little further than my habitual routes here and there around the globe, but soon enough I was back to my well-worn-circuit…

Well-worn – yes; but specifically last year – lesser-worn: I flew a mere 94 times (usually I’m over 100), and was up in the air just 380 hours.

Also:

• 8 helicopter flights;
• ~3000 nautical miles in a ship sailing around the Kuril Islands;
• For some reason I travelled a lot on trains in 2019 – in Italy, China (350km/h!), and Japan (Shinkansen);
• A few kilometers… on a camel!

Avia-stats – number of flights on different carriers:

Aeroflot – 37;
Singapore Airlines – 6;
Air France – 5;
Various jets – 10.

Avia-firsts:

Avianca;
Flydubai;
EVA Air;
Rossiya;
MEA;
Tibet Airlines.

Geographical numbers:

Countries visited: 29 (some more than once): France (five times), Italy (four times), Germany (four times), Switzerland (three), UAE (three), China (three).

Newbies – 5: Bosnia–Herzegovina, San Marino, Rwanda, Mongolia, Lebanon

Number of cities: 65

Number of hotels: 80+

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu1NkUKlR9I/

Work, work, work.

Of course, it’s not all play and no work. I always try and combine both together: I do the conferences, exhibitions, meetings, and other business, and then I add a portion of tourism. So, work:

• 40+ interviews and press conferences;
• 40+ forums, conferences, speeches/presentations, lectures;
• 30+ meetings with senior officials;
• 3 of those – most senior officials: the presidents of France, Rwanda and Armenia;
• 2 of those same 30 – the ambassadors of France and Indonesia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4w0CzfgVYo/

Silverware.

This was yet another excellent year in terms of awards and medals. In all we received 114 awards (seven more are coming up in early 2020 – based on results for 2019:), out of which 73 were for home products (for example KIS) and 41 corporate products (for example KES).

Here are some highlights:

• AV-Comparatives: KIS received an ‘Advanced+’ certificate in the first public Enhanced WPDT test with a result for Protection Level of 100%; moreover, in this test KES also managed a 100% level of protection in ‘Certified ATP Enterprise Protection‘;
• The British testing lab SELabs published its yearly awards, among which KIS got Best Consumer Anti-Malware Product 2019;
• SELabs also published, for the first time, the results of its Breach Response Test of our KATA. The report is here;
• KATA was also awarded a certificate by the American ICSA Labs giving it unsurpassed marks after a full three years (!) of testing: in the 12 quarterly tests our detection rate was 100% in nine of them, and our false positives – zero;
• We’re the only company to have received from MRG Effitas the annual Online Banking Browser Security Award five times in a row (since 2015) for excellent results in its quarterly testing;
• For the third year in a row KES received ‘Recommended’ status in testing by NSS Labs (on Advanced Endpoint Protection).

I could go on and give you the rest of the 100+ awards and gongs and medals, but I think that will do for today. But don’t forget to keep checking the Top-3 metrics, which show graphically which products really do protect against cyberattacks, and which only bombard users with marketing !#*^!+&*!$!

And let’s not forget… ->

• We opened our first Transparency Center in Zurich;
• We put on our yearly Security Analyst Summit, this time in Singapore, and it went swimmingly;
• There was also the not insignificant matter of a full rebranding for the company, just in time for the 2020s;
• We underwent – and passed – the real tough really awful (but wholly necessary) SOC 2 audit;

We launched a new portal for the study of computer maliciousness. Now, if you come across a suspicious file (or files), put it (them) through our ‘x-ray scanner’, which uses these here technologies.

Okie-dokey. That’s enough about work; time for the play, which covers some new additions to the ‘beens’ on my Top-100 List of the Most Beautiful Places on the Planet…

Geographical-phenomenal visits.

• The Galapagos Islands. I liked them so much – I wrote a book all about them, with all my best pics in there too (translation coming up later). Quick curiousness: while there, I discovered that there’s not just one equator, but at least three (Ecuador sits upon all of them)!
• I finally visited Lake Baikal! And we didn’t just walk upon the ice, we 4×4’ed across it too. Check out the link for photos of the incredible ice formations and patterns and more;
• The marble marvels in Taiwan’s mountain ranges in the Taroko National Park. Not only was this my first time there, but it also appeared on my Top-100 for the first time too, after I witnessed for myself how OMGorgeous it was;
• For the second time in my life, the Kuril Islands – this time from top (Kamchatka) to bottom (next to Japan) – and back!
• For the first time – the Gobi Desert. Yes, it’s vast and bleak, but also vastly beautiful – and must-see!
• Bewildering Baalbek in Lebanon. I finally got to experience the place in the flesh, and take a lot of pics thereof, and touch its immense ancient ‘bricks’ like the Trilithon;
• Cappadocia – another +1 to my Top-100. Been, seen, flown, snapped, done; no t-shirt.

Just recently – Tibet! A fortnight crossing the mountainous-desert landscapes, by train (world’s highest railroad!) then minibus (world’s worst driving!), skirting the foot of the Himalayas, taking in views of Everest itself, plus a three-day trek around Mount Kailash. Oh my God Buddha!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5XO34xFg4g/

And last but not least – the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Mayan pyramids and a dozen cenotes.

Culture vulture.

• I finally got myself to fabulous Florence. Oh my Girolamo!
• I checked out the Masada fortress – this time from up above;
• And a visit to Tito’s secret underground Cold-War atom-bomb-proof bunker;

Finally (as in – my final cultural place-of-interest of the year; also as in – I’ve finally gotten round to getting to this must-see world-famous building:), I visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4pGv5dAjEJ/

Simply pleasants, funs, and assorted bits and bobs.

• I saw a familiar – furry! – Kamchatkan face in… the backwater city of Fribourg in Switzerland!
• I got up close and personal with… Rwandan gorillas! I even got a glimpse of a couple… making love, before I respectfully looked away );
• After a long campaign by users and Fan-Klubbers, we finally brought back from the dead the piggy-squeal to our products, which can be activated with old-school cheat codes!

When at Starmus, meet the stars – including the Armenian President, Brian May and Buzz Aldrin!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzIjYBlATZp/

Alas – Ferrari didn’t win the Grand Prix. Oh well. As per – here’s hoping that will change in the New Year…

Back to the good news…

• New glossy coffee-table book penned by moi: Come Hell or High Altai Water – coming soon;
• This year we had our 22^nd birthday, meaning: mega-birthday bash!
• And talking of anniversaries – this year it was 30 years since I got into this here game of anti-virus (in 1989 when Cascade infected my computer) almost by mistake!

PS: All together, it went something like this: