Partners – nice to see you; here in sunny Peru! | Nota Bene: Eugene Kaspersky’s Official Blog

Hola folks!

Lima oceanside walkies – done; next up – our LatAm partner conference, with 220 guests, from 19 countries.

So. What? Why?!…

It’ all rather straightforward really. Practically any mass-market product is sold not directly but through retail chains, distributors, resellers, and so on. Well – maybe with the exception of online sales of various kinds of software, and even then you need a partner with an online platform (by no means every software company can afford to develop and maintain its own online storefronts). It’s the same in our case. While online sales happen with minimal partner involvement, everything from boxed product (yes – that’s still a thing) on upward – especially with corporate products that call for training, deployment, and support – simply can’t get by without a partner network.

And to make that network run more effectively, you need regular meetups, conferences, seminars on new products and technologies, and all sorts of other things like that. And that’s exactly what we do – every year we put on several regional partner get-togethers plus one global one; and we’ve been at it since all the way back in 1999! We even kept to the yearly partner meet-ups schedule through covid in 2020!

Fast-forward to 2026, and this time the capital of Peru was chosen as the venue for our LatAm conference: two days presenting our new products, technologies, and services, talking through the partner program, and so on. Naturally, I got up and spoke too:

What did I talk about?… ->

Basically – about the main evils on the other side of the barricades:

mass-scale cybercrime – feeble though it is (against us) – slowly but surely turning highly professional;
aggressive growth in the quantity (and quality) of cyber-sabotage (they don’t steal – they destroy);
attacks not just on IT (office networks) but on OT (operational tech = industrial networks) too, and that one’s very frightening;
cyber-espionage attacks getting nastier and nastier as well;

And also:

how all of it evolves over time;
“who’s to blame?” – this one I skip, since we don’t go pointing fingers when it comes to attribution, simply because by definition we never have enough information to do it (the traffic of internet and mobile providers, for instance);
where things are going to blow up in the near future = that’s all clear and obvious. And that’s the kind of cyber-apocalypse we’re getting ready for.
“what’s to be done?” = the main theme of my talk, because there’s no time left to ease into things – and there never will be!

By the way, I’m up there speaking in crumpled pants (the ones I usually fly in – soft and comfy), in someone else’s blazer (also soft and comfy – I want one just like it), in a just-bought T-shirt, and in “airplane socks” (the disposable kind). WHAT?!

WHY?!…

Simply because Turkish Airlines lost my luggage en route. They found it again later, but not by the time of the conference. Grrr.

So, what else went on at the conference? – Round tables, of course, plus one-on-one and group meetings with partners, workshops, and various other bits and bobs.

All of this is done to add drive – so that the energy is shared all round – both on the vendor side (us) and on the side of our partner-clients. And it works!