Centro de Imprensa

Abstract of Juraj Malcho’s presentation, VB 2009, September 23-25, Geneva, Switzerland

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With the broadening possibilities and the ever-growing number of computer users, many applications are being developed that have hidden or fraudulent intentions, or which are at best of doubtful usefulness. The motivation behind these applications is financial profit and they typically target the technically low-skilled members of the population. Many such applications are not the typical malware used in cybercrime nowadays (like bots or spyware trojans), but rather potentially unsafe or unwanted applications. However, this dubious software is often associated with groups responsible for malware dissemination, and is often distributed using unfair practices such as spam campaigns or push-installations performed by malware.

When AV labs note these practices and add detection of such applications to their products, this causes a conflict of interests between AV software vendors and the suppliers of such potentially unwanted software. These conflicts sometimes result in legal battles, dragging many people into the decision-making process, including the legal department, and consuming a significant amount of a company's human and financial resources. The decision to detect such software is in many cases made even more difficult by the users themselves: different individuals, social groups and even nations have very different desires and opinions.

Virus Bulletin Conference is the most important event in the antivirus industry. Once a year, it offers an opportunity for top managers of antivirus and software companies to get together with top experts on combatting malware, software developers as well as other experts on PC/Internet security. VB2009 is going to take place in Geneve, Switzerland. 

<img src=Pictures/Juraj_Malcho.jpg</buxus-image> align="left" hspace="5" />Juraj Malcho was born in Žilina, Slovakia. He holds a Master Degree from the Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies at Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. He has been employed at ESET since 2004. As the head of Virus laboratory, he leads a team of virus analysts responsible for the detection of malware. Mr. Malcho is married and has one son. His hobbies include science and technology, sports, hiking, playing guitar and percussion.