Hong Kong, AVAR 2011

Greetings from Hong Kong! This week we are enjoying the security conference AVAR, which is taking place in Hong Kong. Some interesting topics are being covered, such as the talk “Malware in EFI”, where Intel’s Igor Muttik showed us how malware could take advantage of the the EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface)  and the challenges we could be facing, as well as the countermeasures that can be taken. Another topic that has been around a lot is malware in mobile devices. Even though it is not that prevalent, it is true that it is an emerging threat and it raises some interesting thoughts. Of course the cloud is another topic covered here, but one of the most interesting ones are those that are talking about targeted attacks in certain countries in Asia, as South Korea and Japan. The full program is here in case you want to take a look at it.

As some of you may remember, in last year’s AVAR in Bali I was awarded the “Wildlist Reporter of the year” prize, so this year I was the one in charge of giving the prize to the next. On Thursday night, after the gala dinner, I went to the stage to announce the next “Wildlist Reporter of the year” winner, and that was my good friend Philipp Wolf, Director of Protection Labs in Avira. In the following picture, from left to right, you can see Luis Corrons, Philipp Wolf and Peter Chung (Wildlist Director):