Oops! It happened again!
Righard Zwienenberg & Eddy Willems, ESET & G Data
The problems malware causes for the ecosystem started 3 decades ago. Although some viruses are known to be older than that, they didn’t really cause too much trouble. In these 3 decades we’ve had lots of (new versions of) Operating Systems and new versions of applications. Normally one learns from mistakes made before, but somehow in the cyber-eco-system, seemingly it is exactly the opposite.
Eddy and Righard will take you on a scenic tour spanning 3 decades of malware, 3 decades of ecosystems and 3 decades of history repeating itself. Will we ever learn?
The presentation will contain (humorous) repeating events from the last 3 decades, but of course all with the intention to have a serious undertone, all backed up by the 6 decades of experience the two speakers have combined.
Righard Zwienenberg
Zwienenberg started dealing with computer viruses in 1988 after encountering the first virus problems at the Technical University of Delft. His interest thus kindled and studied virus behavior and presented solutions and detection schemes ever since. Initially starting as an independent consultant, in 1991 he co-founded CSE Ltd. In November 1995 Zwienenberg joined the Research and Development department of ThunderBYTE. In 1998 he joined the Norman Development team to work on the scanner engine. In 2005 Zwienenberg took the role of Chief Research Officer. After AMTSO – Anti Malware Testing Standards Organization – was formed, Zwienenberg was elected as president. He is serving on the board of AVAR and on the Technical Overview Board of the WildList. In 2011 Zwienenberg was looking for new opportunities and started as a Senior Research Fellow at ESET. In April 2012 Zwienenberg stepped down as President of AMTSO to take the role as CTO and later as CEO. In 2016 he rejoined the AMTSO board for another two-year run. He also is the Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of IEEE ICSG. In 2018, Zwienenberg joined the Europol European Cyber Crime Center (EC3) Advisory Group as an ESET representative.
Zwienenberg has been a member of CARO since late 1991. He is a frequent speaker at conferences – among these Virus Bulletin, EICAR, AVAR, RSA, InfoSec, SANS, CFET, ISOI, SANS Security Summits, IP Expo, Government Symposia, SCADA seminars, etc. – and general security seminars. His interests are not limited to malicious code but have broadened to include general cybersecurity issues and encryption technologies over the past years.
Eddy Willems
Eddy Willems (1962) is a known malware expert from Belgium. He is a board member of 3 security industry organisations AMTSO, EICAR, LSEC and the resident Security Evangelist and Global Security Officer at G Data Software. He studied Computer Sciences at IHB and VUB and started working as a Systems Analyst in 1984. He became a founding member of EICAR, one of Europe’s first IT security organisations in 1991. He has been active as an anti-malware technology expert for other security companies like Kaspersky Lab. In his role today, he gives presentations and seminars all over the world. Several CERTs, press agencies and publications (print, online and broadcast eg. CNN) use his advice regularly. In October of 2013, he published his first book in Belgium and the Netherlands, titled ‘Cybergevaar’ (Cyberdanger). In December 2015 he published a translated version of his book titled ‘Cybergefahr’ (Springer Spektrum) in the German speaking countries. An English translation and update ‘Cyberdanger’ is expected beginning 2019.