Eugene Kaspersky

MOSCOW, October 4 (RIA Novosti) - Eugene (Yevgeny) Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, was born on October 4, 1965, in the city of Novorossiysk, Russia's Krasnodar Territory.

In 1982, Kaspersky graduated from the Kolmogorov Special Educational and Scientific Center at the Moscow State University, a school specialized in mathematics and physics.

In 1987, Kaspersky graduated from the Department of Technology at the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB (at present the Institute of Cryptography, Telecommunications and Information Technology at the Federal Security Service Academy), majoring in mathematical engineering.

After graduation, under a graduate-placement program, Kaspersky was assigned to a multi-discipline scientific research institute affiliated with the Defense Ministry, where he worked until 1991. That was when he began studying computer viruses upon detecting the Cascade virus on his desktop in October 1989.

Having dissected the virus, he developed his first antidote. After that, Kaspersky started showing a greater interest in malicious computer programs and the development of security tools. The collection of antivirus modules developed personally by Kaspersky subsequently served as a basis for the Kaspersky Lab Antivirus Database, which today contains over 100 million samples of malware.

In 1991, Eugene joined the KAMI Information Technologies Center, where he and his associates developed the Antiviral Toolkit Pro (AVP), the prototype of Kaspersky's future antivirus software. The project won international acclaim in 1994.

AVP, still not widely known in the West, was first tested by Hamburg University's test lab, coming out on top and demonstrating higher virus detection rates than the most popular antivirus programs at the time.

Later in 1997, Eugene Kaspersky decided to establish an independent company with his associates, becoming a co-founder of Kaspersky Lab. From that time, he was the head of the company's antivirus research projects until taking up the chief executive (CEO) position in 2007.

Eugene Kaspersky is the winner of the 2009 Russian Federation State Prize in Science and Technology.

He also holds a number of international awards for his technological, scientific and entrepreneurial achievements.

In 2011, SYS-CON Media recognized him as the World's Most Powerful Security Executive. In 2012, Eugene was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree by Plymouth University.

Also in 2012, Foreign Policy magazine put Kaspersky on the list of the Top-100 Global Thinkers for his contribution to highlighting the need for information defense on a global level.

Kaspersky is the author of a large number of articles and reviews on computer virology, regularly speaking at specialized seminars and conferences in Russia and abroad.

In 2014, Forbes magazine estimated Eugene Kaspersky's fortune at $900 million. According to Forbes, Kaspersky ranked 118th on the list of Russia's 200 Richest Businessmen in 2014.