{"id":340,"date":"2012-09-30T18:46:56","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T18:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=340"},"modified":"2019-11-15T07:30:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T12:30:14","slug":"an-interview-with-eugene-kaspersky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/an-interview-with-eugene-kaspersky\/340\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview With Eugene Kaspersky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eugene Kaspersky has had an interesting, varied life, with more than his share of adventures, successes and challenges. He\u2019s seen and done a lot, but when he learned that he was going to receive an honorary degree from Plymouth University in England he was taken aback. Excited, yes, and humbled, sure. But also somewhat surprised because, to his way of thinking, if the CEO of a security company is important enough to receive such an honor, it\u2019s not a good sign for the direction things are going with online attacks.<\/p>\n

In an interview just before the ceremony in Plymouth<\/a>, UK, last week, Kaspersky discussed the current state of cybersecurity, the biggest threats to consumers in the coming months and years and whether international cybercrime laws are ever going to improve.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What was your first thought when you got the news that you were getting the honorary degree?<\/p>\n

\"Eugene<\/a>

Eugene Kaspersky<\/p><\/div>\n

Eugene Kaspersky:<\/strong> My first thought was, Are you serious? I was surprised. But it was great news and I\u2019m very proud to receive such an award. I wasn\u2019t waiting for such an award. It\u2019s really unexpected. I got an award from the president of Russia for science and technology, and when I found out about that we were in New York and for about half a day I was walking around so proud. I had the same feeling for this. My second thought was, if someone in security is this important, something is wrong. It means attacks are getting worse and worse.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> You\u2019ve been working on the education programs for a long time now. Do you think that security education is necessary for consumers as well as enterprises users and students?<\/p>\n

Eugene Kaspersky:<\/strong> Yes. We\u2019re doing a great job with our education programs. I was talking to some people from the university and they\u2019re really happy with it, as well. It proves that our education programs work and it\u2019s an indication that we\u2019re doing a great job with the right people. It\u2019s a good idea to educate consumers about security as well, especially cybercrime, because that\u2019s the biggest worry for them. For other groups, they need to worry about cyberespionage. There are highly skilled groups doing these attacks, and we need more skill on our side. Education helps with this.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What are the one or two threats you worry about most right now for consumers?<\/p>\n

Eugene Kaspersky:<\/strong> I worry about app stores. There are two methods for infecting things like iPhones and iPads: vulnerabilities or fake software with backdoors. I\u2019m afraid people will use the fake software. It\u2019s a logical attack and we\u2019ve seen it many times on Android. We don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s happening on the iPhone, but it\u2019s logical. For Apple, all it would take is a game or a piece of software that\u2019s interesting to people, someone inserts a backdoor, and it\u2019s only activated on that particular device. If I\u2019m thinking about this scenario, other people are too. For Android devices, you don\u2019t need to plant malware on official sites because it\u2019s more wide open and there are other sites to get apps. Now with Windows 8, there\u2019s an app store as well. But there\u2019s probably no need to attack this as the malicious links to malware sites always work, too.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Do all of the consumer devices make it more difficult to protect people these days?<\/p>\n

Eugene Kaspersky:<\/strong> Many people think they\u2019re safe on their iPhones and iPads. They don\u2019t think of their phones as computers. The tablet is a little different. It looks more like a computer. So it\u2019s a mind problem. The challenge for security companies is to educate them about these things. At the moment, the iPhone is safe, but it could change. It\u2019s the same thing that happened with the Mac with the Flashback Trojan. Cybercrime suffers a little right now because there\u2019s no monoculture. There\u2019s Windows and Android and the iPhone and other platforms. It\u2019s more difficult to infect many computers. It will take them time to adapt to the new technology, to infect new devices.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> So we\u2019re going to have attacks against all kinds of devices at some point, things that aren\u2019t even computers?<\/p>\n

Eugene Kaspersky:<\/strong> In the future we\u2019ll have things like home appliances that will be targets. One of our researchers just bought a treadmill that\u2019s Android-based and it keeps all of your data in the cloud. So you can get it on other machines. Criminals are now facing a challenge to behave the same way in a multi-platform world. But consumers are facing criminals who aren\u2019t going to disappear.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> I think people often wonder why cybercrime is so bad and not many people go to jail. Is that changing?<\/p>\n

Eugene Kaspersky:<\/strong> The good news is, national and international cybersecurity departments are very serious about cybercrime. The police are getting more serious and there are more and more arrests. Security technology is getting more robust and criminals are facing two challenges now: better protection and more professional cyber police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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