When we say "Kaspersky", we mean antivirus. But we must not forget that behind the famous product there is a living person, with his own unique history and destiny. Today Eugene Kaspersky is one of the world's leading experts in the field of virus protection. He is the author of a large number of articles and reviews on the problem of computer virology, regularly speaks at specialized seminars and conferences in Russia and abroad. Kaspersky is a member of the Computer Virus Research Organization (CARO), which brings together the most prominent experts in the field.
“Man-brand” - this is how Sergey Girdin, president of the Marvel group of companies, briefly and succinctly characterizes Evgeny Kaspersky. No less striking epithets were chosen for him by the general director of "Krok" Boris Bobrovnikov: "Transnational monster ...".
Success story, Biography of Eugene Kaspersky
Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky was born on October 4, 1965 in the city of Novorossiysk. From childhood, the boy developed an interest in mathematics, which his mother noticed and began to buy special books for her son. After a specialized mathematical boarding school at Moscow State University, Evgeny graduated from the Institute of Cryptography, Communications and Informatics. It was in the late 80s. At that time, finding a job in this specialty was not so much a problem, but at least a serious topic for thought.
And since by this moment Kaspersky had already managed to start a family (not only a wife, but also two children), it was worth taking the choice with all responsibility. As a result, the military area was chosen. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, the idea of fostering discipline in oneself seemed interesting, which the army definitely contributes to. Secondly, even at school, recruiters from one extremely closed research institute of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces came to Yevgeny and made the most pleasant impression on the young man.
However, the service of the Golden Mountains did not promise, but wanted to develop and move forward. Kaspersky tried to establish a side job in parallel, taking part in the activities of a cooperative that was involved in the trade of PCs. But the venture was not crowned with success, if not - failed miserably. He never sold a single car. But he learned a valuable lesson from the situation: management and trade are not his element.
How a hobby turns into a source of income
It is not known in what other areas he would have had time to try himself if it were not for the Cascade virus that accidentally started on his car in 1989. Having discovered the "disease", Kaspersky managed to "dissect" the virus without any problems (nevertheless, it is unlikely that an average programmer would have been hired by a secret government research institute). Having disassembled the code for parts, he quickly made a program that eliminates the malicious effect. So, almost by accident - and certainly without thinking about it as the purpose of his life - he wrote the first "medicine". But one virus was followed by others.
Why Antivirus? Once upon a time I just liked this direction, it hooked me. These are my "turtles", if we draw an analogy with Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Cat's Cradle". But unlike the main character of this book, I’m unlikely to do something else, because this business will never bore me. "
Many craftsmen around the world in those years "got hold of" the Web, and while some were sowing something reasonable and positive, do not feed others with bread - let them do nasty things to their neighbors. In a word, there was no shortage of computer infection. Eugene, on the other hand, became seriously interested in Malware, but still did not think of her as a source of income. He simply collected Trojans, viruses and others like them, and at his leisure created "antidotes". Essentially a common hobby.
But the earth is full of rumors. Gradually, they began to turn to him for help. At first, the "hack" brought little money, and orders were rare and were too small. A couple of third-party clients and the already mentioned cooperative - that's, perhaps, all with whom the future head of one of the largest anti-virus laboratories in the world dealt with. Of course, this situation made it difficult to consider a promising market area in this area of activity.
The signal for action was the first serious order. A large company that was developing a large software package wanted to include an antivirus program in the kit and turned to Eugene. At that time, this seemed almost impossible - the technologies were not the same, moreover, neither the customer nor the contractor had almost almost any experience. The project seemed too monumental. However, the attempt is not torture. The contract was signed.
Although the resulting program was far from ideal, its development still brought in substantial money. A pleasant feature of this brainchild (pleasant for customers!) Was the GUI, which at that time could not boast of competitors. Almost everywhere MS-DOS still reigned, the command line was a working tool, and Windows was just making its first timid steps "to the people". It became clear that a hobby is quite capable of turning into a job.
And fate, as if deciding to play it safe and fearing that the above case would be perceived as an exception, confirming the rule, threw Eugene another rather serious contract. Now "on hand" there was a batch of computers that needed to be equipped with protection. The deed was done. The antivirus-equipped machines sold well, again making good money. This time Kaspersky invested the money he earned in his first book "Computer Viruses in MS-DOS", having published it on his own. Now it has become completely stupid to deny the benefits, there has been a certain tendency.
“When I started doing antivirus software in the early 1990s, I was able to win 2-3 successful contracts. Thanks to them, I earned decent money at that time, with which I could buy a car or a VCR - then they cost about the same. But at some point I realized that if you think only about money and set your goal solely to earn money, then this would be the wrong way. You need to think about success, and the money will come by itself. Therefore, when I once again received a substantial amount (this was just on the eve of the so-called Pavlovian monetary reform), I bought several tons of paper with them and printed my first book. I didn't make money on this, but I still think I made the right decision. I invested in my name, which eventually became a famous brand. "
What his hobby was transformed into took more and more time. Kaspersky was actively interested in the topic, began attending all kinds of conferences and forums of software developers, writing articles, but he had to do everything in his free time. By the way, working in a secret research institute, it is difficult to conduct active public activities and speak at various events. Every moment I had to constantly talk with the authorities. It became clear that this could not go on for long. It was time to decide - either to pursue a military career, or to quit and work closely with antivirus software.
AVP and Kaspersky Lab
The time was restless and incomprehensible then, no one knew what would happen in the country in six months or a year, and the army, at the very least, guaranteed at least some kind of social security. « I was discouraged by everyone except Natalia - says Kaspersky. - But I was determined to leave ". By the way, the tunic of Senior Lieutenant Evgeny Kaspersky still hangs in the company's office in a place of honor.
I must say that it was very difficult for a young officer to leave the ranks of the army. The dismissal procedure took about a year. Evgeny did his best to part with the Armed Forces without conflict. As it was written in the order of dismissal, he left the ranks of the army for service inconsistency. The co-workers laughed openly and asked: "By service inconsistency in which direction?" Indeed, at that time, and the transfer to the reserve took place in the spring of 1991, Eugene was considered the main "computer scientist" at his institute. For all questions related to software products, they turned to him. “Having removed the shoulder straps,” Kaspersky decided to take himself a short vacation, but could not sit at home for more than two weeks. The search for a new job did not take long, there were several companies in mind. Eugene arranged a tender between three computer companies and on May 19, 1991 he went to work at the KAMI technical center. Until that moment, the company had not been involved in the development or sale of anti-virus products, there was not even such a department. However, the head of the STC - Aleksey Remizov - knew Evgeny well (at one time Remizov taught at the KGB Higher School and read one of the special courses to Evgeny) and completely trusted him. Especially for Kaspersky, which has already acquired a name and gained a certain prestige in the computer world, an anti-virus division was created. At first, he was his only employee.
At first, the entire staff of the department was limited only by Eugene himself. But on the other hand, he was given a full-fledged workplace, a computer and the opportunity to create. The time has come to make up for lost time, because what his then developments represented could hardly have survived in the rapidly expanding market. Lozinsky's brainchild, Aidstest, was firmly in the lead among domestic products at that time; well, Western monsters like McAfee and Norton AntiVirus, which appeared in 1992, left little room for maneuver.
Working tirelessly, 12 hours a day, without vacations and often without days off, Kaspersky set about creating his own antivirus, practically making his dream come true. Gradually, other specialists appeared in the department besides him. The anti-virus databases have expanded significantly. In a word, the process has begun.
By 1994, AntiViral Toolkit Pro (the project got this name) began to look relatively finished. It was no longer a shame to send him for testing to well-known universities and institutes, which Kaspersky did not hesitate to do (using the previously established connections). He sent the ATP to the University of Hamburg, but, while attaching the program to the letter, accidentally sealed it, calling the archive AVP.zip. According to tests, the development bypassed all competitors, detecting the largest number of viruses. At first, Eugene could not figure out what other AVP the e-mails were writing to him about. Only later did he notice an annoying typo, but it was too late to change anything - the program had already become known under the "wrong" name.
In the same 94th, after the triumph in Hamburg, the first contracts appeared. Immediately, right off the bat, foreign - with Italy and Switzerland. AVP was also sold through the STC "KAMI" itself, but the sales were simply ridiculous (not to mention the money raised).
“The first thing I planned when I got down to work was to make the world's best antivirus. In 1994, we took first place in the international testing of programs in Hamburg. Then it became clear that we were on the right path. Even if the project didn’t bring a lot of money, we didn’t start it in vain - it became one of the best in the world. It was only at the next stage that I set myself the goal of creating the number one company in Russia. "
In 1994, Natalya Kasperskaya joined her husband's work, first working in the KAMI store, and then moving to the anti-virus department itself, in the role of a manager. She was entrusted with practically the main task at that time - to organize the sale of the product.
On the ruins of what was only recently the Soviet Union, it was difficult to do business, let alone IT business. Things were not going well for KAMI, while Evgeny's department was gradually overgrown with serious agreements and contracts. Through trial and error, an affiliate network began to be built. Particularly significant moments were the deal with 1C in 1996 and the agreement with the large Finnish company F-Secure on the use of the AVP kernel in their anti-virus products. Around the same period, Natalia started talking about creating her own company and separating from KAMI. At first, Eugene did not share the ideas of his wife, speaking out against, but when everything became quite gloomy at the STC, he gave up.
Thus, on July 21, 1997, an independent enterprise, Kaspersky Lab, was born. The spouse insisted that the name of our hero should be used. The public was already accustomed to AVP as a product of "by Eugene Kaspersky" - and Eugene himself was a well-known figure. Subsequently, the move with the choice of the name fully justified itself.
“My ex-wife Natalya, deciding to save money, offered to name the company by my name, since I was already well known in Russia. In fact, I was categorically against it, but in the end I agreed and I think it was the right decision. Although it greatly restricts privacy. I had to become a kind of "man-steamer". It's a funny feeling, difficult to convey. I can't say that I'm used to it - I involuntarily shudder when they say my name. I would not like Kaspersky Lab to be considered a company named after one person, although I understand that I play a significant role in it. "
The new enterprise is headed by Natalya. She took the post of general director of the laboratory, leaving directly work on the project to her husband. And things went uphill. Already in 1999, the first international representative office of the company was opened, and the share of the Russian market owned by Kaspersky Lab rose sharply from 5% to 50%. The quality of the product, round-the-clock support for customers, which at that time was a huge rarity, and many other, smaller, but important, factors played a role. The former AVP, renamed "Kaspersky Anti-Virus", was in no way inferior to Western competitors.
“Oddly enough, I first felt like a wealthy person in the crisis year of 1998. At that time, we were already 80% an export company, and our partners paid almost in advance to support us. Therefore, unlike many in the market, we felt good and saw a very definite perspective. Although in fact the pockets were empty. It was then that I realized for the first time that the availability of real money is, by and large, unimportant. "
With the onset of the third millennium, we got close to the "recent history" of CJSC "Kaspersky Lab". Initially, Kaspersky Lab employed six people, but gradually it has grown into an international group of companies with headquarters in Moscow, ten foreign representative offices and more than 500 employees (today, the company's Moscow head office alone employs more than 1,500 people).
In early 2002, the Laboratory expanded its scope of activities to protect users not only from viruses, but also from the entire set of information security threats. At the end of the year, users were presented with a personal firewall Kaspersky Anti-Hacker, designed to protect computer networks or individual nodes from unauthorized access, and the anti-spam system Kaspersky Anti-Spam. In 2003, the team of Kaspersky Lab merged with the team of developers of the Romanian anti-virus system RAV. In the annual report "Analysis of the Russian antivirus protection market 2007-2008" by the Russian independent information and analytical portal Anti-Malware.ru, Kaspersky Lab took the leading position in the Russian market with sales of $ 60.2 million and a market share of 45 percent
The company's field of activity has long expanded and now covers not only personal computers, but also workstations, file and mail servers under almost any OS, PDA, etc. Kaspersky Anti-Virus has made a giant leap from the “one of many” category to the world leader category.
Kaspersky continues to do what he loves, studying viruses and keeping our computers calm. Today, without a shadow of exaggeration, he is one of the most significant and significant figures in his field. The word "expert" is more than appropriate.
Business details of Kaspersky Lab
Forbes magazine found the company's financial statements under IFRS for 2006-2010, as well as documents on transactions between shareholders, and highlighted 10 key facts of Kaspersky's business:
STRUCTURE. The parent company of the group is the British Kaspersky Labs Limited (KL), which owns Kaspersky Lab CJSC and distributors around the world. Over the past several years, KL has been pursuing a strategy of acquiring distributors. For example, the purchase of its own distributor in Japan cost $ 120,000, and in America, according to the reports, the distributor was bought out from one of the directors of KL for only $ 10.
BUSINESS GROWTH. The company's revenue from 2006 to 2010 increased 8.6 times, to $ 462 million.
LARGEST MARKETS. Europe - 40%. EEMEA region (countries of Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) - 27%. North and South America - 21%.
“Russian manufacturers of software products are afraid to enter foreign markets, they are simply afraid. They don't understand culture, they don't understand how to do business. They don't speak English. Their foreign countries end with Antalya once a year. I've talked to people like that. I say: "Guys, the Russian IT and software market is a penny compared to foreign markets." They say, “Well, yes. But we feel good here too. " This is a dead-end branch of development. "
MONEY. Thanks to stable cash flow, KL has accumulated almost $ 300 million, or almost six annual profits. Kaspersky's company kept $ 213 million in bank deposits, and another $ 80 million in the cache.
ADVANCED EXPENDITURE GROWTH. With a 40% increase in sales in 2010, the main items of expenses increased by 1.5-2 times. Here are salaries, and marketing with advertising, and even such a line as "travel and entertainment" (an increase of 2.1 times, up to $ 10 million).
PROMOTION OF EMPLOYEES. One of the reasons for the sharp increase in expenses was the launch in 2010 of a long-term employee incentive plan: the company allocated 5.3 million shares for this in 2010 alone. For the options program, the shares are valued at $ 8. The company allocates options in tranches - in June 2011, 2012 and 2013. The fair value to purchase the options for each tranche was estimated at $ 1.49 (2011), $ 2.18 (2012) and $ 2.7 (2013).
REMUNERATION TOPS. The average number of directors in the company in 2010 was 7 people. Their maintenance costs are $ 2.78 million (against $ 4.26 million in 2009). The maximum remuneration of a director was $ 814,000. Top management salaries and bonuses in 2010 exceeded $ 16 million (against $ 8 million in 2009).
CHARITY. In 2010, KL donated $ 670,000 to orphanages and hospitals (up from $ 418,000 in 2009). The reports emphasize that the company did not make any payments to political parties.
DIVIDENTS. In 2009 and 2010 the company paid $ 10 million in dividends.
SHAREHOLDERS. The appearance in 2011 of the General Atlantic fund in the list of KL shareholders came as a surprise. There was talk on the market that Kaspersky Lab was preparing for an IPO. But a year later, in early 2012, the company announced that the fund was withdrawing from its co-owners. Having decided to understand the changes in the capital structure of KL Forbes, there are three main phases:
- End of 2010. The capital of KL consists of 95.3 million shares. The largest shareholders are Evgeny Kaspersky (about 57%) and Zerosta Holdings, according to our data, controlled by his ex-wife Natalya Kasperskaya (about 23%). Among the co-owners are technical specialists Aleksey De-Monderik (over 10%) and Vadim Bogdanov (over 5%), who stood at the origins of the company.
- Early 2011, acquisition of General Atlantic's capital. Kaspersky sells most of its shares (13.3 million out of 22.2 million) to the fund. The amount of the deal is unknown, but based on transactions within the company at a price of $ 8 per share, the value of the sold stake can be estimated at about $ 100 million. In addition, KL issues 5.4 million preferred shares to General Atlantic, which are valued at $ 75 million. ...
- End of 2011, exit of General Atlantic, redemption of shares of other co-owners. The company acquires a stake in General Atlantic for about $ 200 million, while preferred shares are valued at $ 65 million. Transactions with other shareholders are being carried out in parallel. Kaspersky sells 2.8 million shares for $ 28.7 million, De-Monderik - 2 million ($ 20.4 million), Evgeny Buyakin - 1.5 million ($ 15.3 million) and resigns as executive director Kaspersky Labs, other minority shareholders - about 1 million shares ($ 10.5 million). Evgeny Kaspersky also presents part of his shares - their value is estimated at $ 62 million. The total amount of the buyback is $ 337.6 million. The repurchased shares are canceled, reducing the capital to 68.2 million shares.
Based on the value of the shares and their number before redemption, the shareholders estimated the value of the company at $ 1.03 billion.
According to KL documents, Natalya Kasperskaya should have had a stake in the company. But the official message from Kaspersky Lab says that Kaspersky is no longer its shareholder. Calculations carried out by Forbes show that the block of shares sold by Evgeny Kaspersky exactly coincides with the number of shares that should have remained with Kaspersky. Apparently, the former spouses had previously made a deal with shares among themselves. Thus, Eugene Kaspersky's share in KL exceeded 79%. Kaspersky declined to comment on the details of the transactions, only confirming that it had completely withdrawn from the company's capital.
What is the reason for the change in the shareholder structure? In the official announcement of Kaspersky Lab, it was said about the revision of the corporate strategy. Kaspersky, now no longer related to the company, critically assesses the prospects for KL's business: “ At one time, I convinced Kaspersky and other shareholders that it was necessary to attract external capital just for the purpose of buying businesses and technologies in new interesting areas. We even managed to attract an investor, but unfortunately, the idea of development through acquisitions was blocked by Kaspersky. To be honest, I do not see drivers of new growth within the company that would give Kaspersky Lab the opportunity to grow organically faster than the market ... However, I admit that I could be wrong and the company will find new growth opportunities in other ways».
Personal life of Evgeny Kaspersky: hobbies and interests, family, everyday life ...
Eugene loves Formula 1 in general and Scuderia Ferrari in particular. He is fond of kayaking, skiing, mountaineering, and also considers work to be his hobby: "For me, a hobby is work, and work is a hobby ...".
“Life doesn't interest me at all. Only a certain level to feel comfortable - nothing more. I hate shopping - after half an hour in the store, my head starts spinning. I have a wife who makes a preliminary selection of goods about once a year, brings me quickly, dresses me quickly, and quickly takes me away. I don't give a damn what car to drive, the main thing is that it goes. I really love the car, I like to spend my holidays driving. "
One of the main hobbies is traveling: both on duty and simply out of love for distant wanderings, Kaspersky has visited various parts of the world, from Kamchatka to the South Pole and regularly reports on travels on the forum of its own Fan Club (kasperskyclub.ru) and your blog in LiveJournal (e-kaspersky.livejournal.com).
“I have compiled a list of 100 of the most amazing places on the planet that you must see. Until five in the morning I was - I am an addicted person. Forty-two places out of a hundred I have already seen. Moreover, thanks to business trips, which I often combine with tourist expeditions. Curiously, most of the sights that will take your breath away are located in China. From Russia, seven iconic places were included in my list. This is St. Petersburg, especially in summer, on white nights, Red Square in Moscow, Kuzov's islands in the White Sea, where the energy is completely unrealistic, Lena Pillars in Yakutia, Altai, Baikal and Kamchatka. "
« I love to chop wood! Although it may seem strange to some, just lying on the beach is an incomprehensible pleasure to me. It's boring and a pity for time. A friend of mine who lives in the countryside once sent me a photo by e-mail - a pile of logs, and under it the signature: An exclusive type of outdoor recreation - preparing firewood. This is such an exclusive vacation - just right for me. So is fishing. A real male occupation. True, I cannot call myself an avid fisherman, but, like any normal man, this process is interesting to me. After all, fishing is, first of all, hunting, and a man is essentially a hunter. I was born in Novorossiysk, and from an early age, one might say, every day I watched men return from fishing. And my grandfather, a journalist in the past, was just a crazy fisherman and spent all his free time doing this. So I learned the basic fishing tricks under his careful guidance. I caught my first fish in the Tambov region on the Vorona River. I think it was a pike. But I could not eat it. A few minutes ago, she, alive, fluttered and fought ... Over the years, of course, I learned to treat the animal world more pragmatically. Once in Estonia, I even specially went to fish for trout, so that I could cook and eat it right there. There was a restaurant in which every client who wanted to taste a fish dish had to catch fish for himself in a pond in the courtyard of the restaurant.
Another thing is when in Karelia I fished in natural conditions. When the catch crossed all the boundaries of the necessary, my friends and I declared a moratorium on fishing. And the one who fished during the forbidden hours had to immediately cook and eat the caught fish. Probably, my interest in fishing is not connected with hunting instincts, but with the opportunity to be in nature.»
In 1998, Evgeny Kaspersky divorced his first wife Natalia. Now he is married for the second time, has two sons from his first marriage. The eldest - Maxim, studies at the Faculty of Geography, the youngest - Ivan - at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, both at Moscow State University.
“I divorced Natalia. Now we are friends and associates. We have a common business, common interests, but different families. When spouses get divorced, they often become bitter enemies. I do not understand this. Natalia and I treat each other with great respect, support each other, like a brother and sister, we have a joint business, we communicate well. Why create problems for yourself and others when you can avoid them? The principle that I declare is that when you leave, you should smile in your back. "
Natalya Kasperskaya about sons - “The eldest son, Maxim, is like me. He studies poorly, but very curious. His favorite book is an encyclopedia. He knows the name of a frog that lives in Australia and buries itself two meters in the ground. At the same time, I open his notebook on the Russian language with a shudder. The younger, Vanya, a copy of the pope. He studies well, he is very ambitious, he should be the first in everything. "
Son abduction
On April 19, 2011, Ivan Kaspersky was kidnapped near the office of Infowatch, owned by his mother, where he worked as a programmer. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 3 million euros from the Kaspersky family.
As it became known later, the law enforcement officers named the Savelyev family, consisting of the head of the family Nikolai (born in 1949), his wife Lyudmila (born in 1947) and their son Nikolai (born in 1981), the kidnappers of the 20-year-old son Yevgeny and Natalya Kaspersky. R.). In addition to the Savelyev family, the group of abductors included two friends of Nikolai Jr., 29-30 years old each. Later it became known that they were talking about Alexey Ustimchuk (captain of the FSO) and Semyon Gromov.
The cybercriminals searched the Internet for a potential victim for the ransom. Their choice fell on Ivan Kaspersky after they found his home and work addresses on his Vkontakte page.
In an interview, Natalya Kasperskaya said that her son was not tortured and was held in handcuffs locked in a bath. The kidnappers constantly changed the phone numbers from which they made ransom calls. While the law enforcement agencies were engaged in the release of the young man, she and her husband sat on Petrovka in a separate room and waited for the kidnapper's call. On the last day, the criminal did not get in touch, and the Kaspersky learned that everything was over after the information appeared in the media.
According to official information from the GUVD, Ivan Kaspersky was released from the hands of the kidnappers only on Sunday, April 24th. The kidnappers were scheduled to meet for the transfer of the ransom in Moscow, where the entire family of the Savelyevs and one of their accomplices went. The cars they were driving were stopped for a document check, and the perpetrators were detained. At the same time, another group of capture entered the territory of the garden economy, where the prisoner was kept. Ivan Kaspersky was found in the bathhouse, where he was guarded by another accomplice of the Savelyev family.
The release was carried out as a result of a military operation by officers of the FSB, MUR and special forces. The operation in the Sergiev Posad area "took place without a single shot."
“The criminals acted harshly, no threats were received during telephone conversations, except for one time when the main attacker said that he did not want to take a sin on his soul, which was a signal that, in general, they could take any action” - said later Kaspersky.
“The crime was real, my son was captured on the street, all his clothes and everything that was with him was taken away from him, and they dressed him in some kind of robe. As far as I know, he was kept in handcuffs in a dark bath for five days. He didn't even know how many days he spent there. Well, of course, he lost weight, so now we are sending him to rest and fatten " , - said on April 27, 2011 Kaspersky in the "Live" program on the TV channel "Russia-1".
Later, Evgeny Kaspersky said that this incident directly affects the image of Russia, which seeks to be innovative. Evgeny Kaspersky thanked the intelligence officers and noted their professionalism. “I was really amazed at the professionalism that I saw in the actions of the workers of Lubyanka and Petrovka. Many thanks to them " , - he said.
Awards, merits and achievements of Eugene Kaspersky
- In 2001, he organized the opening of the annual Virus Bulletin conference - a central event in the antivirus industry.
- In 2007, Kaspersky received the Symbol of Science medal.
- On June 4, 2009, Evgeny Kaspersky was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology "for major achievements in the field of modern computer information protection systems."
- On June 12, 2009, Evgeny Kaspersky, as determined by the Council for Science, Technology and Education under the President of Russia, became a laureate of the State Prize in Science and Technology and received an award of five million rubles. He used all the funds he received to develop the Kolmogorov Moscow Specialized Physics and Mathematics Boarding School No. 18, where he studied.
- On September 29, 2009, Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky received the National Friendship Award of the People's Republic of China - for his "contribution to the development of the Chinese information security industry." And on the same day, he received another friendship award of the Heihe River (a city in northeastern China, located on the banks of the Amur River, opposite the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk) - a distinction to foreign specialists who made a significant contribution to the economic and social development of the city.
- Since 2009, Kaspersky has been a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, and since August 2010 - a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Skolkovo Innovation Center.
- In 2010, he received the title of "Manager of the Year" from the SC Magazine Europe magazine and in the same year he entered the rating of Russian billionaires of the "Finance" magazine for the first time, where he took 129th place (No. 139 in the rating of the richest businessmen in Russia in 2012).
In December 2012, the American magazine Wired included Eugene Kaspersky in the list of 15 most dangerous people in the world, putting him in eighth place. The first three places in it are occupied by the head of the Iranian special forces, General Qasim Soleimani, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman.
Wired motivated Kaspersky's inclusion in the rating of "dangerous people" by the work of the "Laboratory" headed by him to neutralize the malware Stuxnet, Flame and Duqu, which were used to attack industrial and government facilities in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, as well as his rhetoric in favor of limiting internet freedoms.
« The United States recently launched an Internet campaign to spy on and counter Iranian nuclear scientists. However, cybersecurity experts exposed each of Washington's malware projects, rendering Stuxnet, Flame, and Duqu useless. Many of these professionals work for Evgeny Kaspersky, a Russian computer security tycoon who runs one of the largest and most qualified antivirus companies in the world.", - wrote Wired.
| Flame was discovered in 2012 on the hard drives of the Iranian Ministry of Oil Industry, which were transferred to Kaspersky Lab at the request of the UN. Flame operated on the territory of Iran and other countries of the Middle East, infecting computers of government agencies, private companies and ordinary users. Some of Flame's capabilities can boggle the imagination. For example, one of the modules turned on the microphone of the infected computer and secretly recorded everything that was happening around. Another module, using Bluetooth, scanned the space in search of nearby phones, downloading all available information from them. And when the email client was opened, Flame started to take screenshots every 15 seconds. All stolen data was sent through secret channels to hackers' servers. Flame is similar to the Stuxnet and DuQu viruses (discovered in 2010), which are responsible for disabling the centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr, which set the Islamic republic's nuclear program back for several years. |
Noah Shachtman, who was the author of the chapter dedicated to Eugene Kaspersky in the “list of the most dangerous people,” writes: “ If the only thing that Kaspersky did last year was to interfere in American efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, then he would already have earned himself a place on the list of the most dangerous people in the world, but there are other complaints about Kaspersky. A longtime ally of the Russian intelligence services, he provides technical expertise for the FSB, the successor to the KGB, whose agents his experts train in computer forensics. When Kaspersky's son was kidnapped, the FSB came to his aid».
The second reason for including Kaspersky in the rating was its position on Internet control: “ Kaspersky claimed there was "too much freedom" on the Internet and maintained additional government control over social media, which he blamed in part for kidnapping his son. A few months later, Russia passed a new law banning many categories of websites and obliging Russian telecom companies to introduce new ways of spying on users. Now Western intelligence services are puzzling over whether Kaspersky experts acted independently when they thwarted the malware attack on Iran, or did they do it with the help of the Kremlin?"- asks Shachtman.
Why people like Shachtman are surprised at the fact of cooperation of Russian citizens with their state structures and top officials of the state is not clear. And if we take into account the fact that Kaspersky is a senior lieutenant of the Ministry of Defense, the claims of journalists in general look somehow ridiculous.
On June 18, 2009, then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held a meeting of the Commission for the Modernization and Technological Development of the Russian Economy in the office of Kaspersky Lab. Evgeny Kaspersky himself took part in the meeting of the commission, who made a report to its participants on the production of Russian software. The head of the laboratory gave the president a tour, showing the head of state a server room, an "iron room" where antiviruses are tested, as well as a virus laboratory where virus analysts manually catch viruses. The President considered the office of the Laboratory “interesting and modern”.
The Biggest Guests in the new office of Kaspersky Lab, which is located in the north-west of Moscow, were the General Secretary of Interpol comrade Ronald Noble and the head of the new cyber division of Interpol, Noboru Nakatani, who just yesterday visited Eugene Kaspersky on a friendly unofficial visit. Evgeny Valentinovich told about this from the pages of his blog (eugene.kaspersky.ru).
Probably, the main secret of Kaspersky's success can be considered the fact that he is madly in love with what he does and considers work to be his hobby - “It is still necessary at school, somewhere in the middle grades, to decide what is interesting, what really light up the eyes, what I would like to do after school hours. Technology, beekeeping, forestry - whatever. The main thing is that it should be yours. I don’t know any other way to feel happy. Option one: be yourself. "
Evgeny Kaspersky's statements will reveal the secrets of his success:
“I was lucky - my mother recognized in me a craving for mathematics when I was still a child. This has largely determined my life. Seriously, I started to study science at the physics and mathematics school. It was great there. I didn't want to go back to regular school, so I had to study well. Then I entered the Academy of Cryptography, where I also had to work hard so that I would not be kicked out. And I worked hard - with passion, all this was terribly interesting to me! Talent is talent, but to be successful you need to know the materiel. After school, choose an educational institution more difficult - and go ahead. "
“Don't be afraid to make mistakes, don't be afraid to experiment, don't be afraid to work hard! Perhaps you will not succeed in anything, it is possible that circumstances will be stronger than you, but then if you don’t try, you will be bitter and hurt for not making up your mind. If you try, you have two options: either it works or it doesn't. And if you don’t do anything, there’s only one option ”
“Today I am a kind of walking brand person. Frankly, the meaning of my life lies in expansion, I want to fill the whole world with my products. I like to conquer new territories. Success turns me on. Quite a normal desire for any guy. "
“My theory of correct behavior: I call it 'the rabbit under the tree.' There are two options for behavior: the first is to sit under the tree for the rabbit, [the second] is to run fast. So, if you are sitting under the tree, you have only one option, someone will find you and fuck you. If you run fast, you have [more] two options: either someone faster will catch up with you and fuck you, or you will find someone who is sitting under the tree. Here are the business secrets from Eugene Kaspersky " -
“Lee Kuan Yew is the man who built Singapore. He was able to turn into a pearl a state that was in a state of ruin and looked the most deplorable. And he achieved this by rather tough methods. In some situations, rigidity is justified, because softness cannot achieve such impressive results. If you are kind, they will sit on your neck and force you to go in the wrong direction at all. But this is the case with the state. If we talk about the company, everything is more complicated here. Neither democracy nor tough despotism works. We need a golden mean. "
Evgeny Kaspersky is an adherent of a collegial, exclusively democratic style of leadership with maximum delegation of authority - “I have never been involved in day-to-day management. I do not like this. My task is to indicate the direction of the steam locomotive, i.e. delegate authority correctly, and himself to gallop in front on a white horse with his head held high. Next, the task of the driver and his assistants is to make the locomotive run along the rails along a given path. Success is the engine that pulls the cart. And if things are going well, the cart will always have enough coal for the fire. I have never in my life had any doubts that I am doing the right thing. "
“The opportunity to retire has arisen many times in my life. Once I was offered to move to a higher-paying job at another antivirus company. Then there were persistent requests to sell Kaspersky Lab. But why should I? The idea of getting rid of business, buying a desert island, sitting on the shore and throwing coconuts at sharks does not appeal to me. "
“It's also about the specifics of our business. No matter how terrible the crisis is, even when the economy is going very badly, no one will give up computers. The car breaks down - you change to public transport. A laptop is out of order - you buy a new one, because you can't go anywhere without a computer. And at the same time it needs to be protected from viruses and other troubles, otherwise it will sooner or later stop working. "
“My attempts to learn to read e-books have failed. I can not. It does not work - and that's it. I need a paper book, bound, not a soulless piece of iron with a touchscreen. I can’t help myself. It’s hard to explain, as well as why I don’t wear suits and ties, or why I have used the same phone model over the years. I’m probably a very conservative person - but not when it comes to technology and business. Name me at least one company that employs top-level experts who are both technical and PR qualified. And we have just like that. "
“What you dreamed about and what eventually came true - there are two big differences. But it doesn't bother me. I am happy with how everything turned out. I am now in a position to finance ambitious and promising projects that are designed to last. I speak from the high rostrum. But there is also a downside to the coin. I cannot afford from February to June and from September to December, when the hardest part of our business begins, to give up everything and go on vacation. "
"For me, money is the freedom to think more about the future than about the present, the freedom to experiment."
“Do I still have an unfulfilled dream? Of course, not alone. In terms of business, my dream is to have my company ranked among the 100 most valuable brands in the world. I want to visit space, once again go to Antarctica. Wishlist is updated regularly. I believe that if a person has not decided on what is happiness and stopped dreaming, which means he committed spiritual suicide. "
“Having made a mistake, I admit my guilt. It's easier to live this way. This is generally the most correct thing that a leader can do. His authority in the eyes of his subordinates is only growing. After all, employees already know everyone, why hide a pig in a poke? I'm not afraid to be wrong. If a leader not only evaluates achievements, but also boldly admits mistakes, employees will whisper less behind his back. "
In order to make a brand, it is clearly not enough just to name the company by its own name. Kaspersky Lab set off on a long and difficult voyage, and there were many dangers ahead. How did the name of Kaspersky become a brand? Here is how Yevgeny Valentinovich himself speaks about it:
“It happened very slowly, it took us years to gain a good reputation, first in the Russian and then in the world market. It's just that we have always tried to take a responsible approach to personnel search and make products much better than others. This was far from always possible, but sometimes it was possible, and the further, the more often. When we started our independent business, our products occupied only 5-10% of the Russian market. Only specialists and experts knew us. Year after year, the company's products and services have gained widespread acceptance, and this has been different in different countries. In Russia, we were initially known better, our brand was well received by the states close to Russia - the Baltic States, Ukraine, Israel, where 1/6 of the population are immigrants from our country. It was difficult to break into the English market due to British conservatism and a very cautious attitude towards new products - it took almost five years of hard work for the Kaspersky brand to begin to be recognized in this market. It was easier in France and Germany, where people are more receptive to new technologies and value the quality of the goods very much. In the United States and Japan, we are still almost unknown as manufacturers of finished products, although Kaspersky Lab has long been selling in these countries its technologies used in the programs of local companies.
At first, there was no strategy, they only thought about how to survive, tried different ways to enter new markets. The standard strategy used by many of our competitors is as follows: a company opens an office in a new country, invests $ 1 million in an advertising campaign, and advertisements appear on the pages of each computer publication. But often this does not work: a year passes, the advertising budget ends, advertising in the press disappears - and everyone forgets what kind of product it is.
Kaspersky Lab has taken a different path - from experts to mass users. First, we prove the superiority of our technologies to people who are well versed in them - technology partners who build our functional modules into their products. Then we offer the finished product to other categories of users, we start working with Internet providers. Through providers, the company reaches out to small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations, and over time, home users are also connected.
We use standard promotion tools: we arrange press conferences, PR-tours, promotions, exhibitions, etc. In some cases, we entered the market immediately with a ready-made solution, a product - it turned out to be much harder than starting with licensing technologies. The lack of money was not so much as human resources - in order to conquer the whole world, you need a lot of good people. Now we have already penetrated almost all markets of interest to us, and there is no need to invent new strategies.
Kaspersky is, first of all, antivirus protection of the highest level for millions of users all over the world. Moreover, its properties apply not only to our finished products, but also to technologies licensed by us. Kaspersky Lab is an example of a Russian technology company that has managed to build a business from scratch not only in Russia but also abroad. The brand is based, firstly, on my ability to anticipate the situation, because sometimes I guess the trends in the viral world, the trends in computer threats, and we manage to respond to them in time - faster than others. The second is the ability to come up with technologies that help us catch computer viruses better and faster. The third is the ability to assemble a team. And finally, just luck. "
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Evgeny Kaspersky is a Russian computer genius, a man-brand, a billionaire, a programmer, an expert in information security, who created the international company Kaspersky Lab, which deals with IT security, has more than 30 regional representatives and sells software in more than 200 countries.
Evgeniy is the main owner and director of the Laboratory, a member of the Organization for Computer Virus Researchers. Kaspersky regularly publishes articles and reviews about viruses.
Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky was born in Novorossiysk on October 4, 1965. Eugene was the only child in the family. The boy's parents had nothing to do with programming. His father worked as a design engineer for cement plants, his mother was a historian and archivist.
Evgeny studied at a school near Moscow in Dolgoprudny. Since childhood, Eugene showed interest in mathematics. This interest was gladly supported by the boy's mother, buying special books for the child. In addition, Kaspersky attended a special course in mathematics.
Studying at school and self-education gave a brilliant result in 1980. Evgeny wins the mathematical Olympiad, and the boy is enrolled in the A.N. Kolmogorov boarding school at Moscow State University.
In 1987, the guy graduated from the Higher School of the KGB and received a specialty "engineer-mathematician".
Programming
Having become skilled in mathematics, cryptography and computer technology, in the same 1987 Evgeny Kaspersky gets a job at a multidisciplinary research institute under the USSR Ministry of Defense. In this job, a programmer studies and analyzes computer viruses.
Kaspersky's success story was not one-time, for ten years the programmer has established his name with projects in the field of anti-virus protection of the OS before starting his own personal business.
In 1989, Evgeny Valentinovich develops a utility for treating the system from the Cascade virus.
The programmer got interested in the process of creating utilities, and Eugene went deep into the work. Already in 1991, Kaspersky was employed at the KAMI Information Technology Center. There, Kaspersky heads a group of narrowly focused specialists who are developing "drugs" for computer viruses.
In 1992, programmers headed by Evgeny Valentinovich presented the first product - AVP in version 1.0. The test laboratory of the University of Hamburg confirms the quality of the program in 1994. This is how the Kaspersky product earns its first international popularity. Foreign companies became interested in the work of the group.
Kaspersky Lab
In 1997, a Russian programmer makes a big step towards success - Kaspersky Lab appears. Evgeny Valentinovich and his colleagues create a company. Kaspersky did not want to highlight his name, but his wife insisted on it. Natalya Kasperskaya was also one of the co-founders of the new company.
Eugene Kaspersky founded Kaspersky Lab In the same year, an Internet portal launched by Kaspersky Lab, SecureList, appears, which is an encyclopedia of viruses, vulnerabilities, errors and malicious objects. The portal is periodically updated, has Russian- and English-language pages, develops and works up to the present moment.
In 2000, the name of the creator was acquired by the brainchild of the AVP company. The product is known under this name even now - "Kaspersky Anti-Virus". Until 2007, Evgeny Valentinovich is in charge of research, and then holds the post of General Director. Today the main office of the Laboratory is located in St. Petersburg.
Kaspersky is one of the world's most renowned specialists in the field of information security and anti-virus protection.
World recognition
In 2012, Kaspersky is rightfully ranked among the most influential thinkers of the year by Foreign Policy. Oddly enough, but among the Russian names on the list, the businessman is second only to the Pussy Riot group.
But the American Wired assigns Kaspersky the 8th number in the ten most dangerous people in the world. There is no noise without fire, because Kaspersky contributed to the exposure and neutralization of the American cyber espionage program in the Middle East.
The success and influence of Kaspersky was not ignored by spiteful critics and Internet trolls. In some sources, the programmer was declared an FSB general working in a dummy IT organization that collects personal information from users, in others - a hacker who writes viruses and trades in cyber terrorism in order to create demand for the laboratory's security products.
According to its creators, Kaspersky Lab does not use outside investors' money, the company is independent, and its own profit turnover is sufficient for the development of the Lab. The press center of the company calls the rumors about links with the special services slanderous. Kaspersky himself does not comment on rumors, does not advertise his party affiliation and relations with the authorities, and sees one of his missions as follows: he is a warrior on the front line in cyber war, where computer viruses play a destructive role.
Also, Kaspersky stands for "transparency" on the Internet, the programmer is against anonymity and believes that with the identification of each user, the "web" would become safer. Kaspersky believes that future Internet users should obtain a special passport and pass an exam similar to the exam for a driver's license.
Evgeny Kaspersky proposed the concept of dividing the Internet into zones Eugene also supports freedom of speech at the same time. Kaspersky proposes a new concept of dividing the Internet into three zones: in the "red" zone, which contains online banking, government services and even online voting in elections, Internet passports are required; in the “yellow” zone related to age restrictions, as conceived by Kaspersky, only authorization for parental control is required; in the "green" zone - blogs, news sites, social networks and other resources that ensure freedom of speech - no authorization is required.
Personal life
Evgeny Valentinovich was married 2 times. First wife - Natalya Kasperskaya, co-founder of "Laboratory". The couple divorced in 1998. According to Kaspersky, shortly after the divorce, the programmer married a Chinese woman. After the first marriage, there were two sons, Maxim and Ivan, the children grew up in a bilingual environment and speak fluent Russian and Chinese. The eldest son Maxim was not inspired by the work of his father, choosing the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University.
In 2011, the youngest son Ivan Kaspersky became a victim of the family's wealth - the boy was kidnapped from the metro. The criminals demanded 3 million rubles for the boy's life. The abduction ended with the capture of the intruders thanks to the special operation of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department and the task force.
As for the ex-wife of Kaspersky, the ex-spouses communicate and even sometimes rest together, each with a new family.
Among the hobbies of Evgeny Valentinovich are alpine skiing, hiking, kayaking, photography and racing. The programmer loves extreme sports, despite his age and unsportsmanlike physique. Kaspersky monitors Formula 1 races and even collaborates with Ferrari.
Passion for skiing led to the acquaintance of Kaspersky with his second wife.
Evgeny Kaspersky is fond of Formula 1 racing The wife works at the Institute of the Russian Language named after. Kaspersky characterizes his wife as smart and delicate. Eugene generally appreciates intelligence in women and such character traits as gentleness.
The hobby of a businessman and a developer is "Kaspersky's Blog", in which Evgeny Valentinovich talks about cybersecurity and the work of the company. The blog also contains photos of beautiful places, interesting events from the life of this whole, self-confident person. In addition to the text blog, Eugene maintains an account on Instagram.
State
In 2016, Kaspersky's fortune was estimated at $ 1.1 billion. In the list of the richest businessmen in Russia, according to the Forbes rating, Kaspersky ranks 86th.
Kaspersky's company cooperates with law enforcement officers. In June 2016, Kaspersky Lab played a key role in finding 50 hackers from the Lurk group.
In December 2016, an investigation began under the article on "high treason" against an employee of Kaspersky Lab Ruslan Stoyanov and the head of a division of the Information Security Center of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Sergei Mikhailov. The "Laboratory" does not refute the arrest of the employee, but draws the attention of the media to the fact that the accusations refer to the period when Stoyanov had not yet worked for the company. In 2017, journalists got information that the case was fabricated due to an internal conflict in the special services.
At the end of 2016, Evgeny Kaspersky filed an antimonopoly complaint against Microsoft with the EU and Russian authorities, and called the company's behavior outrageous on his personal blog. The reason for the conflict between the two companies was a change in Microsoft's approach to third-party software. The new operating system replaces the programs installed by the user, including antiviruses, with counterparts manufactured by Microsoft. Kaspersky provided evidence that the proposed counterparts in the field of information security are much worse than the products of "Laboratory", which means that the user is at risk through the fault of Microsoft.
You can talk about the Russian computer genius for a very, very long time without stopping, without losing a single word of admiration, because this person is Evgeny Kaspersky. His biography is full of achievements of the highest level. This person is a brand in itself, a billionaire programmer, the head of the self-created international company Kaspersky Lab, which deals with computer security, sells software in at least two hundred countries and has more than thirty representatives in the regions.
In addition to managing the company, he works a lot at the Computer Virus Research Organization, regularly reviews this topic, writes articles and develops computer protection. The laboratory is flourishing, and the biggest contribution to this is made by the director and main owner - Eugene Kaspersky.
Biography
He was born in 1965 in Novorossiysk. The family was intelligent, had nothing to do with programming. His father worked at a cement plant as an engineer, and his mother was an archivist and historian. Only Evgeny Kaspersky himself really fell in love with mathematics in the family. His biography was built on this love.
From Novorossiysk, the parents moved to Moscow - to Dolgoprudny, where the boy studied at an excellent school and attended a special course in his favorite subject. Childhood, family, parents - the biography of Eugene Kaspersky, as the only son, was based only on love and mutual understanding. The parents liked their son's hobby, and they supported him in every possible way: they bought special books, helped in everything.
The result is brilliant. In 1980, Evgeny Kaspersky, whose biography was already beginning to take shape in a certain way, won the All-Union Mathematical Olympiad, and therefore entered the Kolmogorov boarding school. Even then, everyone knew that this educational institution belongs to Moscow State University. However, there were higher educational institutions in the country that were much cooler. In 1987, it became clear that the biography of Eugene Kaspersky looks even richer from the choice made: he received a degree in mathematics engineering from the Higher School of the KGB. This was followed by several years of service - right up to receiving the rank of senior lieutenant.
Work
The science of mathematics was always easy for him, cryptography and computer technology were extremely interesting, and therefore there were obvious successes. Immediately after graduation, the first triumphs emerged in the biography of Eugene Kaspersky. He got a job at a multidisciplinary research institute that existed under the auspices of the USSR Ministry of Defense. This was the service.
It was here that research on computer viruses began. The success did not develop in a single moment, it took the programmer ten years to establish himself as it should in the field of anti-virus protection of operating systems, after which it was already possible to organize his own business.
Mysteries
One of the most famous experts in the fight against cybercrime today is Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky. His biography is exceptionally rich in events, including those dangerous both for Eugene himself, "saving the world every day," and for his family. Everyone knows the case of the kidnapping of his son. But this man was and remains a real threat to global hacking. A photo of Eugene Kaspersky can be easily obtained on the Internet, as well as the simplest information about him known to the whole world.
However, the main part of his life has always been closed to everyone and will probably never open up to the end. In any case, not during our lifetime. For example, Evgeny Kaspersky is only joking about nationality. It is placed on the branches of their family tree by Jews, Germans, and Bulgarians (the latter even spread the theory that the computer was invented in Bulgaria). In fact, the surname is Polish, and Yevgeny Kaspersky himself, first of all, is a Soviet man.
1989-th year
From this year on, the direction of all further activities of one of the most famous and was clearly defined. It was in 1989 that a successful programmer got his first own computer. And, as it turned out, infected. At the origins of the development of personal computers, very few people knew about viruses, they were a huge rarity. Such unpretentious, even primitive ones, would surely be funny to today's programmer.
But then they did not know how to fight them. Kaspersky was lucky, fate itself met halfway, slipping the infection into the very first computer, which Evgeny cured without difficulty. But the virus saved it on a floppy disk - for study. After analyzing this malicious program (it turned out to be "Cascade-1704"), Kaspersky wrote a "curative" utility. Purely out of curiosity, he did all this, but the Air Force General Staff itself became interested. Since that time, viruses began to come to the programmer constantly, more and more, more and more complex. Kaspersky snapped them like nuts.
1991-th year
In 1991, another fateful event happened: an already well-known programmer was admitted to the "KAMI" - Information Technology Center, where he continued to deal with anti-virus programs. Six years of work in this institution gave an exceptionally good result - the Kaspersky Anti-Virus program, which very soon became the most popular in Russia and in all CIS countries.
The level of protection was very high, and this novelty soon began to stand not only on computers of various companies, but also on almost every personal one. The program was constantly being improved, new versions appeared, which were also very successful. And in 1997, Evgeny Kaspersky with a small group of colleagues and like-minded people founded Kaspersky Lab, which quickly became a large company with headquarters in Moscow, and its representative offices were opened in various parts of the world.
Cooperation
Conferences and seminars on computer virology are held on behalf of the company, both in our country and abroad. Students are taught to resist hacker attacks. Now the exchange of information is going on with the special services of Russia, Israel, Poland, Brazil, America, and the company's turnover has grown incredibly. The exact figure is unknown, but in the early 2000s, experts counted about seven hundred million dollars a year.
From history: the founder of the company did not really want to put his own surname on public display, but in those days Evgeny Kaspersky had a personal life for a long time. And his first wife insisted on just such a name for the future brand. She also co-founded. Simultaneously with the start of its own company, SecureList was opened - an Internet portal that is an encyclopedia of viruses, errors, vulnerabilities, and malicious programs. The information is constantly updated, it comes out on two pages - in English and Russian versions.
Personal life
For the first time, the legendary cybercrime fighter married the future prominent businesswoman - Natalia. She became in 1997 a co-founder of his "Laboratory". In a word, Evgeny Kaspersky and his wife had a lot in common. The photo speaks of such closeness, which, it would seem, is not afraid of any ups and downs in life. But in 1998 they divorced. However, they did not part until the end, remaining friends, colleagues and partners, keeping the very two of their sons - Maxim and Ivan - were brought up together.
And since Evgeny Valentinovich remarried almost immediately, the children perceived the two families as one. The first wife also formed a new family, and very often they vacationed together - with two families, keeping them Only in 2012 Natalia and Eugene stopped being business partners.
The third wife of Evgeny Kaspersky is a Chinese woman. A photo of this couple from 2009 - the beginning of their relationship - and to this day it is simply impossible to find on the Internet. "All three of our common children speak fluently both Russian and Chinese, which, of course, enriches the world of their communication," says Evgeny Kaspersky. "A Chinese wife is great!"
Family
The new wife works at the Pushkin Institute. As they say, she is an intelligent and delicate person. Kaspersky most of all values softness in women, about the same - intellect. Maxim, the eldest son, did not follow in his father's footsteps; he chose Moscow State University and its Faculty of Geography. Ivan is also at this university, but studies computational mathematics and cybernetics. In 2011, a terrible thing happened - something that wealthy families often experience.
Ivan was stolen from the metro and demanded a ransom - some miserable three million euros for his precious life. The Moscow Criminal Investigation Department worked well, the criminals were quickly detained, Ivan was returned to his parents safe and sound. But anything could have happened. You can imagine how worried loved ones were, if the whole country was so worried that strangers shared fresh information with each other on trams: "Caught? .. How, still not ?!" And so all five days, until the situation was resolved by the capture of the criminals.
Hobbies
The most important hobby of the famous programmer is skiing. And in general, he is very fond of extreme types of recreation - kayaking, auto racing (he collaborates with the Ferrari brand, follows Formula 1 with great attention). She takes great pictures. Travels a lot, and prefers virgin, wild places. Loves Kamchatka.
He maintains a blog where he talks a lot about the work of the company, about cybersecurity, but there are about the same number of photographs taken with his own hand in the most beautiful places on the planet, as well as many stories about interesting events, by which one can better discern the activities of this self-confident, whole and positive a tuned person. In addition to the blog, Kaspersky has an Instagram account.
State
In 2016, the fortune of Eugene Kaspersky was estimated at $ 1.1 billion. According to Forbes, in the ranking of the richest Russians, he took 86th place. The creators of Kaspersky Lab claim they have no outside investors. The company develops thanks to its own profit turnover, and they value its independence very much. In principle, there is still enough profit for development.
Everything that Kaspersky has of significant investments is associated only with its "Laboratory". He does not play any outside business games. The success of his own company is what is his main business. Of the property, according to him, only Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow apartment and a BMW car, he has nothing else, and he no longer needs anything.
The purpose
Kaspersky is at the forefront of today's cyber war, fighting the destroyers of our future - computer viruses. And the fact that our life today is unthinkable without information technology is clear to everyone. There will be more further. For many years, rumors have been circulating about the Laboratory's connections with the special services. Eugene Kaspersky himself does not comment on any rumors at all. no matter what they concern, he certainly does not advertise his party sympathies.
The laboratory's press service calls the rumors on this topic libel. However, there is clearly cooperation! And it is necessary. It is impossible for law enforcement officers to do without the help of specialists of such a plan today. So, in June 2016, it was Kaspersky alone who helped them find fifty hackers (the Lurk group).
On guard
And a little earlier, in 2015, Kaspersky Lab uncovered cyber espionage, the victims of which were Israel, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan and other countries of the Middle East, where there were a huge number of victims of Operation Desert Falcons. It is not only the Middle East that has suffered. Even in Russia, the virus was discovered. More than fifty countries have lost over a million valuable files.
These were mainly government agencies, military departments, media, research institutions and educational, large energy companies. Political leaders and activists with critical geopolitical information have suffered. Kaspersky Lab detected all three groups of Arab hackers who carried out their malicious activities in different countries.
Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky is a programmer, one of the world's best specialists in protection against malicious software, a leading developer and shareholder of the international group of companies "Kaspersky Lab".
Childhood, adolescence
The future computer genius was born on October 4, 1965 in Novorossiysk (Krasnodar Territory). Eugene was the only child in the family. During his school years, he was fond of solving complex problems from mathematical journals. He attended the physics and mathematics school organized at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The last 2 years of schooling he spent at the Physics and Mathematics Boarding School No. 18, operating at Moscow State University. In 1982 he entered the Institute of Cryptography, Communications and Informatics at the "Higher School of the Red Banner of the KGB", where he studied as an engineer-mathematician. He graduated from training in 1987.
Professional activity
1989 - began to study the phenomenon of computer viruses, having discovered the "Cascade 1704" virus on his computer. Until 1991, Evgeny Kaspersky worked at the research institute of the USSR Ministry of Defense, where he got on assignment. It was then that Kaspersky created its first computer antidote. After that, he began collecting malicious programs, while at the same time creating healing modules for them. Later, this collection became the basis of the Kaspersky Anti-Virus database. At the moment it has about 4 million records.
1991-1997 - works at STC "KAMI", where he participates in the development of the antivirus project "AVP". In 1994, AVP was tested by a laboratory at the University of Hamburg. The test results showed that this program was in many ways superior to the antiviruses known at that time.
1997 - together with a group of like-minded people creates Kaspersky Lab. According to him, the Laboratory still does not have investors and operates at the expense of its own resources. In this case, all profits are invested in further development. Initially, Kaspersky Lab employed 6 people, but over time it has developed into an international group of companies with a head office in Moscow, a staff of several hundred people and 10 foreign representative offices.
1999 - the first foreign representative office of Kaspersky Lab (Kaspersky Labs UK) was opened in Cambridge.
2007 - Evgeny Valentinovich holds the post of CEO of Kaspersky Lab (initially he held the post of head of anti-virus research). At the same time, Kaspersky took part in the filming of the "Network" series, which tells about Russian hackers.
2009 - received the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology. By order of D. Medvedev, he is a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation.
2010 - Member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Skolkovo Foundation. Named "Leader of the Year" by SC Magazine Europe.
2012 - Ranked 40th Most Influential Thinker of the Year by Foreign Policy. At the same time, the American magazine Wired places Kaspersky in the 8th position in the list of the most dangerous people in the world. This happened due to the fact that Eugene Kaspersky was able to expose the American cyber weapon created for espionage in the Middle East.
Kaspersky is the author of many articles and reviews devoted to computer virology. In addition, he regularly speaks at specialized conferences and seminars, both in Russian and foreign. Kaspersky proposes to eliminate the anonymity of the Internet. In his opinion, the world wide web will become less vulnerable when each of its users is accurately identified. In particular, he calls for allowing the Internet connection only after passing the exam, as a result of which the user must receive a special passport. In addition, Kaspersky believes that a special Internet police should be created to control the legality of the actions of network users.
This is the end of the 20th century, a century in which the development of technology aroused the interest of a number of very talented people and, wishing to prove their superiority in the computer world to the whole world, they created the so-called computer viruses. The history of Kaspersky Lab began at that legendary time, when virus writers were just taking their first steps, and viruses spread mainly on floppy disks.
At the end of 1989, a well-known "orderly" of the computer world, Eugene Kaspersky, was found to have the Cascade virus on his computer. This virus led to one of the first viral epidemics in Russia. Having created an "antidote" to the virus, Evgeny Valentinovich got a taste of "medicine" and still runs a leading company in the antivirus industry.
And already in 1991, Evgeny Kaspersky and his associates (fellow developers) began working with the computer company "Kami", where the anti-virus department had just been created. Subsequently, Natalya Kasperskaya became the head of the department. With the beginning of her leadership position, Natalya began to lay the foundations for the future commercial success of the antivirus project. Under her leadership, the development of the partner network began.
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