Now Panda is offering this system free for personal computers. Cloud Antivirus was launched in the spring of 2009, and within just the first few weeks, the software received millions of downloads.

Bernardo Quintero, founder of the security company Hispasec, says he never planned on founding a company, but his interest in computers began early. When he was 16, his computer became infected for the first time with a virus, “so I programmed a virus detector to prevent it from happening again.”

“With the arrival of the internet, I became interested in security in general,” he says. He started by writing a column on security for a Spanish PC magazine. That turned into a website, Hispasec, which Quintero created with other experts in the field that provided daily updates on issues of internet security. Hispasec’s writers became national experts in the field, and companies began to request consultation and security audits from them, “so we were basically obliged to create the company to satisfy the demand,” according to Quintero.

Hispasec engineers have developed programs to detect vulnerabilities, penetrate a company’s information boundaries, and to combat phishing and Trojan malware that attempts to hijack computer systems. They also developed a service in 2004 called VirusTotal, a free service that allows the analysis of any file using multiple antivirus programs.

“With VirusTotal, we’ve classified more than 20 million examples of malware, and it continues to grow at an astounding rate,” he says. This knowledge has brought the company unexpected benefits: says Quintero, “Because we have such a huge library of malware, we were able to become a specialized laboratory for Trojan malware, which robs bank users of their personal information.”

Security also played a key role in the development of Gesfor’s Educa project, an online education management tool currently serving millions of users - teachers, students, and parents – in Madrid and in other regions around Spain. Gesfor, which provides IT services around the world, created Educa in cooperation with the local government to provide ongoing information about assignments, due dates, and grades, allowing parents and teachers to follow a student’s progress. This project builds on Gesfor’s experience managing information systems, human resources, and security for banks, airlines, and the tourism sector.

“Because Educa is used by a lot of young people, the security side of the project was also very important, and we’re implementing security functionality that we’ve developed in-house,” says Jaime del Rey, Gesfor’s chief technical officer.

Extract from an article published in the magazine Technology Review.
www.technologyreview.com/microsites/spain/it.aspx

Now Panda is offering this system free for personal computers. Cloud Antivirus was launched in the spring of 2009, and within just the first few weeks, the software received millions of downloads.

Bernardo Quintero, founder of the security company Hispasec, says he never planned on founding a company, but his interest in computers began early. When he was 16, his computer became infected for the first time with a virus, “so I programmed a virus detector to prevent it from happening again.”

“With the arrival of the internet, I became interested in security in general,” he says. He started by writing a column on security for a Spanish PC magazine. That turned into a website, Hispasec, which Quintero created with other experts in the field that provided daily updates on issues of internet security. Hispasec’s writers became national experts in the field, and companies began to request consultation and security audits from them, “so we were basically obliged to create the company to satisfy the demand,” according to Quintero.

Hispasec engineers have developed programs to detect vulnerabilities, penetrate a company’s information boundaries, and to combat phishing and Trojan malware that attempts to hijack computer systems. They also developed a service in 2004 called VirusTotal, a free service that allows the analysis of any file using multiple antivirus programs.

“With VirusTotal, we’ve classified more than 20 million examples of malware, and it continues to grow at an astounding rate,” he says. This knowledge has brought the company unexpected benefits: says Quintero, “Because we have such a huge library of malware, we were able to become a specialized laboratory for Trojan malware, which robs bank users of their personal information.”

Security also played a key role in the development of Gesfor’s Educa project, an online education management tool currently serving millions of users - teachers, students, and parents – in Madrid and in other regions around Spain. Gesfor, which provides IT services around the world, created Educa in cooperation with the local government to provide ongoing information about assignments, due dates, and grades, allowing parents and teachers to follow a student’s progress. This project builds on Gesfor’s experience managing information systems, human resources, and security for banks, airlines, and the tourism sector.

“Because Educa is used by a lot of young people, the security side of the project was also very important, and we’re implementing security functionality that we’ve developed in-house,” says Jaime del Rey, Gesfor’s chief technical officer.

Extract from an article published in the magazine Technology Review.
www.technologyreview.com/microsites/spain/it.aspx