The fight for white hats

You know how the last blog posting talks about technology being the most important thing in the anti-malware industry? Well, that probably has to be qualified a little bit, because the other key message coming from the Kaspersky Lab New Dimensions press event so far has been the importance of the engineers. So, it's actually all about the technology ... and the people.

Yes, the unsung heroes of anti-malware industry were finally given their day in the sun today - well, not literally, they were still locked away in a windowless room staring at code - as Eugene Kaspersky explained how the astonishing success of the company has been down largely to attracting and keeping talented engineers. The firm is lucky enough to have access to the talent pool of graduates from Russian universities, many of which have a reputation for excellence in engineering and technology courses. But it still has difficulty in finding enough of the best, and on occasion even loses them.

According to Kaspersky, one employee had to re-locate to another software company as it became too distressing to stay on the good side of the malware war, once he found out how much some criminals were making.

That's a pretty extreme example, of course, but what is true is that competition for the best of the best is fierce. Kaspersky also has a bit of an advantage over some of its competitors, however, because of its reputation, VP of R&D Nikolay Grebennikov told me. It is well-known in the industry for innovating, and supporting its engineers with whatever projects they might find it necessary to undertake, so it has garnered a good reputation among the security researcher community. Things get done, in other words, and with the recent creation of the Global Research and Analysis Team (although most security vendors have something like this already) there is yet another lure to tempt potential white hat recruits into the Kaspersky ranks.