Hi all!

Once upon a time long, long ago (in 1998 to be precise) some comrades and I, much in need of some rejuvenation on the basic ideas front, decided to take leave of the hustle and bustle of Moscow for a short while and get ourselves to a quiet place (so that nobody could disturb us) in a charming location. We needed to get away from it all, and to go back to basics – to discuss and hammer out blueprints for the future of our technologies, antivirus engines, how various antivirus subsystems effectively interact with one another, and other such fundamentally crucial topics.

So this is what we did…

First, we needed to get the venue right. What we were after was a place that was sufficiently comfortable (not some doss house with one bathroom per floor or something), but nothing more. We also needed a conference room that could seat six – that’s how many were heading out. Basically it needed to be reasonably economical, since back then we weren’t exactly flush with cash, to say the least. Thus: three-star it was to be.

We checked out various places in the Moscow region, but to no avail. So then we looked further afield. Eventually we decided that the most suitable place – out of those not too far from Moscow – was the Czech capital. So off we flew down there…

More: Prague brainstorm, 15 years later…

Yep, we’ve reached the age of consent folks! No more little 15, just sweet 16 :).

As per tradition, we celebrated our birthday in style – for the 15^th time (no typo – see the ‘P.S.’ below). KLers from all over the globe descended on a spot in the countryside to the north of Moscow last Friday – which thankfully was a beautiful sunny day (not like last year’s washout:).

Another year, another beer

More: I’ll let the pix do the talking…

A little while back we had the General Secretary of Interpol, Ronald Noble, visit us in Moscow. He really is quite a guy. He’s been awarded the French Legion of Honor, is a professor of the New York University School of Law, and – surprise, surprise! – is an honorary professor of the Urals State Legal Academy (if you believe the Russian Wikipedia page on him:). Anyway, it’s now my turn to pay him a combined business and social call…

Lyon in France houses the head office of Interpol. When I asked “Can I take photographs?”, I was delighted by the answer, “whatever and wherever you like”.

More: So I took some photographs…

Last night in London this year’s SC Awards ceremony took place.

The SC Awards are a bit like the Oscars for European IT-Sec, and I normally find myself in attendance most years to pick up an award, for example – last April. But last night was the first time we received two of the most prestigious London Oscars in one night. Hurray!

And they’re not just any old awards:

• Information Security Vendor of the Year; and
• Information Security Team of the Year (for our GReAT (Global Research and Analysis) team.

Nice. Thank you to my agent, Mum, Dad, cat, God, etc., etc.; but mainly – thanks to the KLers who made this all poss :).

More: A well-deserved drink or three…

On the news of late I’ve been seeing an awful lot of reports about very woeful wintery weather all around the world. In Moscow they’ve had the heaviest snowfall in something like centuries, and Northeastern USA also got a fair overdose of the pretty white precipitation. I start thinking that it’s all just signals warning of impending doom caused by global warming. But then, who wouldn’t – bar ostriches – after all the freak snow and then looking at the results of ice drillings in Antarctica at the Vostock Station? :( But I digress…

So it seems that everyone from New York, to York, to Yakutsk is suffering big time with loads of weary winteriness. So that leaves me + cohorts + partners feeling… well, a little bit guilt-stricken, to say the least. Why? Because we’re all on the sun drenched, snow-free, profoundly picturesque Yucatán Peninsula.

More: Why conferencing in paradise?…

It’s been little more than a year since the release of the previous version of our corporate product (Endpoint Security 8), but we’ve already rolled out a new (need I say it – much improved) one. Yesterday, as per tradition in New York, we had our global launch of Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business (KESB) – a nifty bit of software kit in which all sorts of new stuff comes together – from a flock of new functionality to a new name and a new product line.

This post gives you a peak at all these newbie bits and bobs featured in KESB. But first, as a bit of background to make all the new stuff a little easier to get your head round (I hope), let me give you a historic overview what’s gone on in the past and which has brought us to this year’s culmination: KESB.

More: In the beginning there was antivirus…

Phew. A three-week US tour behind us. It’s been tough. It’s been stamina hammering. But it’s been fun. Shame to be leaving really, but commitments elsewhere beckon. We do leave with a ton of strong impressions and good memories though – and loads of pics. In all we managed to cram a heck of a lot into the allotted time, but made sure we enjoyed ourselves too – stopping to smell the roses and see the sights when we could. Now for the same old “suitcase – taxi – airport…”. Where we’re off to next I’ll tell you later on. But it sure looks like we’re in for a total change of landscape.

Our last day, in New York, turned out to be a pleasantly sassy, super-fly summation: a peachy press conference attended by folks from all over the world – including star participant Fernando Alonso! He’s playing the lead role in the new clip for our Safeguarding Me campaign (if you only knew how we had to guard his special “tomita” (the little Japanese talisman in the vid) during shooting!). Have a look for yourself:

More: Super Fly finale on the 40th floor…

More: Cyber-Conferences (and a Cyberian-Cyber-Village). . .

Hi all!

Now, if you’re not too hot on geography, I’m writing this from Washington, D.C., with the D.C. standing for District of Columbia, don’t you know. There’s another Washington – Washington state – on the other side of the American continent, but without the D.C. There’s a Colombia – the South American country; then there’s Columbia University in New York; there’s Columbo – the TV detective fond of beige sack-like raincoats; and to add to the confusion, round the other side of the globe there’s Colombo – the largest city of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), which is where we’re headed today.

Our three days in Washington whizzed past like a film on fast-forward: As per, we were whizzing about all over the place getting to event after event. And I really mean whizzing – just like a (non-D.C.) squirrel in a wheel – unlike the local squirrels here, which royally, haughtily and languidly stroll about parks as if they own them – not the easily-startled beasts I’m used to.

I won’t tell you all about all the events we took part in here – there’s not much point and it’d probably be pretty dull reading! (Note to event organizers/participants – your events were not dull to me :) I’ll just share with you one comment about the Billington Cybersecurity Summit where I got to speak about cyber threats, more info on which you can read here.

I really enjoyed personally meeting a whole lotta highly placed officials at the event and discussing with them in some detail the topic of cybersecurity and fighting computer maliciousness around the world. I was pleasantly surprised by how much these ladies and gentlemen – on whom a lot of US policy and thus security depends – know about the subject, and especially pleased to discover that their positions are very much like mine. Phew.

Work done, come Saturday we were able to get a bit of sightseeing in. We even managed to visit a couple of museums. The National Museum of Natural History we didn’t think too much of – all those dug-up mastodons and dinosaur bones look kind of unconvincing. While the Air and Space Museum… oh yes – that was more like it. All sorts of interesting stuff to see there, from the Wright brothers’ first airplane to the very latest drone. There are Messerschmitts, an SS-20, a Pershing, copies of Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz, and so on and so on. I decided against taking photos – there are plenty on the Internet. But it’s best to see it all in the flesh, of course.

More: Columbia-Doha-Colombo …

Hi all!

Ready. Steady. Go!

The season’s traversing the globe – rather, the northern hemisphere – has begun with gusto.

First up – Tianjin (天津, “Heavenly Passage, Ford”), China, which is approximately 100 kilometers southeast of Beijing en route to the sea. The city (actually, its central district – along the banks of the river) is really impressive to look at – but not in the more traditional Chinese sense of hustle and bustle and lots of folks and bicycles; instead – one of calm, quiet neat-and-tidiness, plus very few folks – and fewer bikes. Some of the parks are almost like those in… er, a much smaller nearby country, which I’d better not mention just now.

Along the riverbanks there’s a kind of fusion of styles going on here. Looking at the new buildings and bridges you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re in Paris, a bit later on – London; over there there’s a totally-Tokyo (oops) skyscraper, round the corner there was an Italian quarter… (we didn’t manage to see that, or plenty of other places worth checking as we only had an hour for our walkabout). The river is the Hai (海河) btw, which means “sea-river”.

More: The place where famous pics of FDR, Churchill and Stalin sat together were taken …