Mikko Hypponen

Director of Anti-Virus Research, F-Secure

Technometria: The Virus Problem
57 minutes, 26.5mb, recorded 2007-04-17
Topics: Security
Mikko Hypponen

F-Secure is one of the leading companies devoted to the study and prevention of computer viruses, spam, and other types of malware. Mikko Hypponen, the company's Director of Anti-Virus Research, joins Phil and Scott in a discussion of the current status of the virus problem.

Mikko first reviews his background and how he became involved in the study and prevention of malware. He discusses some of his experiences with both worms and early viruses and reviews some of the problems trying to prevent spam. He talks about how spammers are still successful enough to stay in business, usually because users continue to be taken in by their schemes.

Mikko shares his experiences on how new viruses are handled as they appear and assesses the chances of ridding the tech world of malware completely. He also gives some suggestions on how to combat some of the biggest problems that affect the average user.


Mikko Hypponen works as Director of Anti-Virus Research at the F-Secure Corp. He has worked with F-Secure since 1991. He led the team that infiltrated the Slapper worm attack network in 2002, took down the world-wide network used by the Sobig.F worm in 2003 and was the first to warn the world about the Sasser outbreak in 2004.He has been the subject of dozens of interviews with media outlets such as BBC, NBC, CNN and CNBC. He has also been interviewed by Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Wired, New York Times and Newsweek.

In addition to his other duties, he has co-authored two books. Mr. Hypponen, born in 1969, has been an invited member of CARO (the Computer Anti-Virus Researchers Organization) since 1995. Apart from computer security issues, Mr. Hypponen enjoys collecting and restoring classic arcade video games and pinball machines from past decades. He lives with his family, and a small moose community, in an island near Helsinki.

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This free podcast is from our Technometria with Phil Windley series.

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