Phil Muncaster
IT Journalist
Education: BA English Language and Literature; PGDip, Journalism
Highlights of your career: Living and working in Asia at the start of my freelance career. It opened a new chapter of my 20+ year career as a journalist and got me regular exposure in titles like The Register and MIT Technology Review.
Position and history at ESET: I’ve been contributing business and consumer-focused articles to ESET now for over three years.
What malware do you hate the most? All malware is bad malware. But ransomware can be existentially evil.
Favorite activities: Smashing tennis balls around, honing my Spanish, and finding amazing new places to eat out.
Golden rule for cyberspace? Practice good password hygiene, switch on MFA, use trusted security software, and keep your machine automatically updated.
When did you get your first computer and what kind was it? I think it was in a ZX Spectrum 48k back in the early 1980s, followed by the 128K version, which had non-rubber keys and a built-in tape deck!
Favorite computer game/activity: I haven’t played computer games since Sonic on the Sega Mega Drive. My activity du jour these days is rabbit-holing on a random topic while trying to research an important story online.
What titles have you worked on in the past and present? I started out as a reporter on UK enterprise IT title IT Week and then Computing—as News Editor. Next came The Register (as Asia correspondent), MIT Technology Review, SC Magazine, and IDG Connect. Today I mainly write for Infosecurity Magazine, Assured Intelligence and ISMS.online, and sporadically for other IT news and feature sites.
