Nota Bene

Travertine? Never heard of it? Is it an indie band? Is it a type of floor covering? Is it an errant world-traveler? Actually, none of those. Actually, if you don’t know what it is, that might just point to the fact that you’ve never visited Pamukkale in Turkey. For if you had, that’s where you’d have learned that this, is travertine! ->

The terraces of Pamukkale, which means “cotton castle” in Turkish, are without a doubt among the most beautiful and unique natural objects on our planet (so, of course, they feature in my Top-100 Most Beautiful Places in the World). The travertine is the sedimentary rock deposited by mineral water at the exits of the hot springs here that has formed a colossal cascade of pools with stalactites hanging down off them – and everything as white as snow.

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Hi folks!

These are difficult, challenging times; however, they’re also hopeful, ambitious times – as we Kontinue to adjust and adapt. Example: we’re radically restructuring our various budgets: we’re trimming off sponsorship and advertising spends that have no direct relation to the development of new technologies and products. And we’re also continuing to aim for ever faster roll-outs of upgraded cybersecurity products.

Then there are the efforts to fill the spaces left in the market since some foreign companies left the Russian market. But replacing Rexiteers’ products is not as new as you might at first think. For example, we’ve been replacing Splunk‘s software since the American company left certain markets – even before the pandemic (in 2019)! So now instead of Splunk, there’s our… KUMA (no, not that Kuma:), which, incidentally, has greatly surpassed Splunk in terms of functionality. In a word, hurray!

Then there are our acquisitions, for example of Brain4Net back in the fall of 2021, and our majority stake in MyOffice early this year. And a little birdie is whispering into my ear that all-things-diversification are only going to get more and more interesting. Stay tuned folks!…

But all strategic management work and no play makes Eugene a dull boy, so… off I flew with the family to Abu Dhabi, of course ) ->

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Hi folks!

The last time I was in Pamukkale, Turkey, was way back in June 2004 after a regional partner conference. And as, back then, I never carried a camera around with me like today, I’ve no pics to show for it; all I have are hazy memories. Ever since then, I’d wanted to return, as I was so impressed with what I saw (it’s even made my Top-100, no less), and was curious to see how things had changed since. For now – a single photo; more – later…

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Hi folks!

25 years and nine days ago – on June 26, 1997 – the company that happens to have the same name as me was registered. And it was “humble beginnings” in the truest sense: around a dozen folks with zero turnover – but with some special tech-expertise and some equally special and veeeery ambitious plans. And we looked something like this:

Fast-forward two years to 1999 and there’s already around 40 of us ->

And that’s how it all started. // Btw: you can find out more details about our history here.

Twenty-five years – a quarter-century! – doing some great work! Based on our own world-beating antivirus engine, we developed breakthrough internet security products for home users. It didn’t always go smoothly, but we got there! There was our Ver. 6 – remember that? (And what a grandiose tale there is to tell there:) Then we gradually moved into the enterprise market, managing to develop some great products there too: first in the endpoint category, and then also network-traffic control, protection against targeted attacks and so on. Then we turned to protecting industrial objects. And now (without being too modest), I can say we’re the only company in the world that provides such a broad range of top-notch cyber protection: for user devices, workstations, server infrastructure and network traffic, as well as industrial control systems like SCADA. Moreover, we cover the widest range of operating systems and device types.

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When the past is studied carefully, a detailed and precise picture of the present can be formed; then, the expert’s analytical mind (better – lots of experts’ analytical minds) can warn about – even predict – the foreseeable future. This is precisely how we here at K can often guess predict accurately how the upcoming evolution of digital maliciousness will pan out. It’s also how we keep abreast of the latest cyberattack trends, which allows us to timely develop the corresponding technologies needed in the fight against the cyber-unpleasantnesses around the corner. There’ve been times when we were mistaken in this expertise-based cyber-prophecy of ours: some types of cyber-awfulness is pretty hard to predict at all – but those instances have always been the exception to the rule; more often than not we’ve been bang on the money.

So how do we manage it? Is it just bearded geeky super-brainy types who do all this analysis and cyber-prophesizing? Actually – no. A lot of it is automated. And that’s to be applauded: a human – no matter how brainy – can’t compete with today’s computing power and algorithms and robots and AI machine-learning. The brainy human is still needed, of course; but why do all the heavy-lifting alone?

It’s the heavy-lifting that I’ll be telling you about today in this post. Technological, science-based heavy-lifting that allows us to predict the future (no mystical fortune-telling à la Baba Vanga:).

Let me start off by telling you about the evolution of our Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP).

I’ll break it down just like in the title: how we analyze the past, test the present, and then we crystal ball predict the future…

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Hi folks!

Been a while, I know. Let’s just say… I’m traveling less of late (. However, occasionally I do manage to fly off somewhere, and since I’m a die-hard kerosene-head, doing so duly preserves my sanity ).

So where was I off to this time? Generally – south. But I’ve never known a flight to a destination in the south take such a bizarre detour: first it was almost sharp east, then directly south, followed by sharp west. Oof:

Yes, as you’ll have guessed, I was headed for Istanbul. Hurray!…

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Hi folks!

We all know perfectly well that the internet is awash with all kinds of malware – from the primitive amateur-grade to the sophisticated pro-grade. And over the last three months things have gotten a lot worse. The cyberswine are becoming all the more daring, and their methods – all the more advanced and refined. And though battling the cyber-baddies is both worthy and wholly necessary, prevention is always better than cure.

That is, being able to recognize cyber-evil for what it is and in good time is a task of vital strategic importance; all the more so when we’re talking not simply about protecting businesses, but about protecting critical infrastructure – the kit that provides us with the safe, comfortable and stable conditions in which to live.

Accordingly, educating employees how to spot cyberattacks on corporate networks is real important. And yes, we’re the world’s biggest fans of such cyber-enlightenment: we regularly conduct trainings of all different kinds – and also formats: both online (including in real time) and offline, and all under the caring and attentive gaze of our experts.

Not so long ago I wrote on this here blog of mine about our training programs on identifying cyberattacks based on sets of malware characteristics (you can read more about YARA rules here). But here at K, we never stand still, so we’ve gone and upgraded, and today I want to tell you about our new course, which has just been added to our educational portfolio of online training for experts.

So here it is folks – introducing… training on how to respond to (Windows OS) incidents (including ransomware) – the Kaspersky Windows Incident Response course. Btw, earlier this course existed only in offline format and was the most popular among our customers; however, it’s intended for internal teams just as much as for independent cybersecurity specialists who want to further improve their knowledge and raise their qualifications.

Now, according to recent research, top managers of (non-IT) companies, and also owners of businesses seem to overestimate their ability to deal with ransomware – especially if they’ve never come across the problem. And ~73% of companies aren’t able to cope with a ransomware attack even with the help of their IT service contractors. Yes – that’s plenty!

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Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature.

Rounding off our MYB winter road trip, it was time to change mode of transportation. We parked up the tired Land Rovers, and headed to Baikal Port. As in – for ships and boats; with a Lake Baikal completely and utterly frozen over. Confused? Well, actually, Baikal Port also features a rail terminal. And it was there that we were to board a train for an excursion along the full length of the Circum-Baikal Railway to the town of Slyudyanka. But this isn’t just any old railroad. This happens to have been one of the most difficult engineering feats when it was constructed, and also happens to be one of the most scenic in the world. See for yourself! ->

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Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature (and a spot of -50° adventure).

[Health warning! There follow a zillion active-tourism pics from a frozen Lake Baikal; the effect may be too much for your senses; you may faint. You have been warned!]

Onward – westward – on our MYB expedition, and suddenly… we’d reached Lake Baikal! Not that we really noticed at first, for we arrived in Severobaykalsk (here) at the northern end of the lake in the dead of night. It was only the following morning when I opened the curtains in my room at the Aurora Hotel when I got my first glimpse of the mind-blowing view of this mind-boggling lake…

Coming up, the final, and perhaps most fun segment of our expedition: driving upon the frozen lake from its very top end almost all the way down to the other end in the south for a full ~600km! Six hundred kilometers on the ice of the world’s deepest lake (including four shore-to-shore crossings along the way). Oh my giddy!…

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It’s been a while since my last post on new/updated products, so here’s making up for that…

Our Kompany mission is to protect any and all citizens of the digital world – anywhere and any-when – against all cyber-evil in all its many flavors, stripes and categories. And that protection of course includes protection of the world’s most vulnerable internet users – children.

We firmly believe in advising kids on how to recognize potential threats on the internet, as well as how to conduct oneself properly on the internet in general. Then, hopefully, there’s nothing embarrassing or even painful accompanying a child online for the rest of his/her life; after all, whatever’s put on the internet stays there – forever. We do our bit in this in various ways; for example: with webinars, public speaking appearances, joint educational projects, books, cartoons, videos and research.

And we also provide protection for kids with our parental-controls app – Kaspersky Safe Kids.

Up and running several years already, the app is constantly improved and fine-tuned so as to better suit the particular needs of children and their parents when it comes to using digital devices safely.

But it hasn’t always been plain sailing for us: a couple years ago we had to… – get this: “fight for the right to protect children” with our app. Eh?! Indeed, we had to resort to legal action in connection with a certain famous apple-emblazoned company to prevent its using unfair competitive advantages for its own parental-controls function included in its mobile operating system. Still, as is our wont with legal battles, we won the antitrust case, and the functionality that wasn’t permitted before was enabled; fairness, common sense and justice prevailed! Interested in how the Federal Antimonopoly Service case went? Then check out this, this and this.

Ok – back to our fully-functional Safe Kids app. I think I’ve already mentioned that we constantly improve it. Well let me tell you about the latest improvements…

In the very latest version of the app for iOS we’ve expanded the functionality for parents – adding more features for supervising their offsprings’ online activity. Thus, parents (or guardians) can now more thoroughly filter undesirable online content as per specific categories, learn more about the preferences and interests of their children (in particular, by monitoring what YouTube videos are watched), and set screen-time limits.

Here are a few screenshots of the interface for parents:

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