NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
May 28, 2025
Hi folks!
Herewith – another rewind/catch-up post now I’ve had some time get it done!…
And so it’s back to the United Arab Emirates – this time the Emirate of Abu Dhabi – for… this! ->
But first – rewind. (“Again?!”)
May 27, 2025
How many times have I been to Dubai? Based on both memory and my photo archives, I think it must be no less than 20 times. Some were long trips, others were lightning-fast one-day hops; all the same – you’d think I’d have seen all there is to see and snap there by now. But you’d be wrong. For they build new stuff here faster than I can keep up with; example: the Ain Dubai Ferris wheel ->
In keeping with Dubai’s shiny maximalism, it turns out it’s the tallest Ferris wheel in the world – a full 250 meters in height.
The closer we get – the more impressively grandiose the views get…
May 14, 2025
“Busy, busy – as a bee: that’s me!”
Yes, I could have been a poet, but I’ll settle for… globetrotting (partner-)conference-bingeing CEO!…
For yes – you’ve guessed it – I was at yet another partner conference the other week. This came hot on the heels of a real busy schedule in Egypt, after which I was teleported over to the UAE (more precisely, to the small Emirate of Ajman, here) for our annual partner conference for the Middle East and Africa region.
This was our eighth regional conference in… the region (having started in 2017, but we had a few pandemic-related breaks). And how we’ve grown! This time we were joined 110 partners from 67 companies across 20 countries. For some the flight to get there took eight hours, while for others – the local partner – it was just five minutes in a taxi!
Anyway – welcome!…
// And thanks for making just the one typo in the welcome sign :-) ->
I wonder if they had typos over there? ->
April 29, 2024
On our recent business trip to Dubai for our first global Cyber Immune conference, we chose probably the most unusual of places to stay out of any business trip I’ve been on. So unusual was it that it deserves a whole post to itself…
As the title of this post indicates, we stayed on the Queen Elizabeth 2 – or, as everyone refers to it, the QE2. But, what were we doing “staying” on a British cruise ship in UAE? We were staying on “her” as, since 2018, she’s been a converted hotel – permanently docked in Dubai!…
It was the first time I’d step foot on a cruise ship; probably the last too, since cruises are not me thing at all. But here, we weren’t cruising!…
April 27, 2024
Despite the extraordinarily uncharacteristic weather in Dubai, we still managed to hold our first ever international Cyber Immunity Conference there; hurray!
So, what is Cyber Immunity? (In case you don’t know; sorry if you do.) It’s our approach to building cybersystems that are secure-by-design and, as such, resilient against hacker attacks.
Actually, there’s a lot of talk about what it is. There’s talk about programming needing to be accurate and secure, and that we need secure processes of program code development, multilevel testing and cross-checks, and other such nonsense. But we believe that the main thing in security-by-design is the basic architecture of the operating system; specifically, its ability to protect even untrusted and vulnerable components/modules/applications, or, rather – block their abnormal behavior. We’ve lots more detailed information here, and those who want to dive even deeper into it are welcome to contact our experts, who can be reached at the same link.
As we hurtle ever deeper into the cyber-era, it’s clear that Cyber Immunity will be our savior. Alas, it’s still only one side of the coin in that cyber-era, for there are still the ever-increasing professionalism and numbers of hacker attacks from the other side of the barricades. However, I firmly believe that, out of the two, one side has no long-term future. Guess which one ). But for that scenario to materialize we need to learn how to build cybersystems that are secure-by-design to be able to fend off hacker attacks. That is the future of the cyberworld. And the other week, when we were down in the UAE, it was of course highly fitting to be able to talk about the cyberfuture in Dubai’s Museum of the Future ->
All righty. Off we pop to our conference…
June 20, 2023
We had our Global Partner Conference 2023 the other week. And, getting ahead of myself, let me tell you it was a great success!…
Our global partner conferences are one of the most important regular business events for us. They’re where we tell our partner companies (distributors, system integrators, service providers, and so on) from all over the world how our products and services are developing, and how those products and services can help their customers solve the most difficult aspects of cybersecurity all the more. In turn, our partners share with us how their business is growing and changing, what’s happening in their regional markets, what they want more of, and what their customers dream of. Then it’s back to us to tell them what we envision they’ll be wanting in a year’s time, in two years’ time, and in five. And it all looks something like this:
October 17, 2022
Every fall – since 1981! – GITEX (= Gulf IT Exhibition) takes place in Dubai. This is a reasonably comfortable time of year in the Middle East for an event such as this. It’s not so hot – just +35-38°C (!), unlike the summers with +50°C. You can even step outside and not get roasted on your way to, for example, the exhibition…
Attending exhibitions and conferences, meeting partners and customers, chatting with industry colleagues, and giving speeches and interviews – it’s all a part of my job description. It can be exhausting, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary in the fight against cyber-evil in general, and in helping advance our projects, technologies and products in particular (which dovetails back into the overall fight against cyber-evil). I even have a tag on my blog for such events all over the world – pictures from exhibition. And yes, if you know your 70s prog rock, I did indeed ~get the name from that album ).
// Btw – the cherry on the icing on the cake in terms of visual OMG-ness on this trip to Dubai comes at the end of this post. So bear with me – and no looking ahead!…
July 8, 2022
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 ) ->
July 7, 2022
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…
November 15, 2021
As you’ll probably know, I get myself to all sorts of exhibitions and events. Naturally most have an IT flavor. For example, there’s Hanover’s CeBIT (RIP); Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (where I was in June of this year); Interop in Japan; the industrial Hannover Messe and Innoprom in Ekaterinburg; the Chinese World Internet Conference; assorted regional get-togethers; the exclusive WEF conference-exhibition event in Davos; INTERPOL-World, and even modern art in an exhibition format sometimes.
So, yes – I visit plenty of exhibitions, knowing the ones I frequent inside-out. However, there’s one type of exhibition I didn’t know much about, for I’d never been to one. I’d always heard about them down the years, but never had a taste for myself. I’m talking about world’s fairs, aka world expos. There’s a reeeaaal long tradition of them, starting out in 1791 (!) in Prague, through 1900 in Paris, 2010 in Shanghai, to 2020 2021 in Dubai – where I happen to be writing this from. And yes – you’ve guessed it, now I know what the deal is with these world expos. And if you don’t already know the deal yourself, you will do by the time you reach the end of this post!…
What exactly is a world expo?…
