Tag Archives: welcome

Bonjour folks!

A quick official interlude…

The other week it was time to roll out the red carpet again at KL HQ – this time for the French ambassador to Russia, Sylvie Bermann.

Plongée fascinante dans l'univers de la #cybersécurité avec @e_kaspersky, dont l'entreprise soutient l'#AppeldeParis pour la #sécurité et la confiance dans le #cyberespace. pic.twitter.com/ztghJhSclz

— Sylvie Bermann (@SylvieBermann) January 30, 2019

Our meet went very well: cordial, interesting, enjoyable. The ambassador and her aides showed great interest in cybersecurity matters, and clearly had a solid professional awareness of all things digital in this modern day. We told them all about our work and achievements in France and French-speaking countries, and shared our plans for development of new technologies and of cooperation with French companies and state bodies. Other topics included our vision of further development of digital technologies in industrial systems, and about possible cyberthreats to industrial infrastructure and how we can fight them together.

So yes, it went swimmingly. Our esteemed guests left us satisfied and certain of our shared cyber-tomorrow.

Btw, the ambassador was driven here in a Citroën C6. You don’t see many of those in Moscow. In fact [as curious as ever and looking it up on the net], you don’t see a great many of them anywhere: there were apparently only 23,384 ever produced, between 2005 and 2012. Nice car. And rather exclusive ).

Ni Hao folks!

Last Friday we had the pleasure of receiving none other than Xu Lin, China’s chief of cybersecurity and internet policy. Naturally, it was time to roll out the red carpet.

We’ve been working in China now for more than 15 years. In that time we’ve come a long way: from literally nothing (zero market presence) to a well-recognized brand (Ka-Ba-Si-G; the whole naming thing in China is a whole other story – on for another day) and good contacts in high places. We meet with Chinese regulators regularly (funny, but I’m sure those two words are unrelated:), more often than not in Beijing, but sometimes also in Wuzhen. Well it was Moscow’s turn this time to host one of our meets.

Read on…

During a short break in Moscow between business trips, I had the honor of having none other than the British Ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, and colleagues over for tea and a chat. Shame we don’t have a croquet pitch up here on the fifth floor veranda :).

Read on: in a warm and friendly atmosphere…

In late July, mentally I was already on vacation in Altai. It was warm, there was the usual seasonal lull in business and a general sense of leisureliness and summer holidays. However, one morning I found a message from our Brazilian partners in my mailbox, and it was completely out of sync with the calm pace of life. At first, I even thought something was wrong: maybe our Brazilian partners had been overexposed to the sun, right on the eve of the Olympic Games? :) Then I read their letter a second time, did some Google searches, and… was blown away.

The bare facts. Two Brazilians who don’t know a single word of Russian decided to visit Russia for the first time in their lives. Over 21 days, they traveled 10,000 kilometers on their motorbikes from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.

The message explained that the courageous bikers had just flown back from Vladivostok to Moscow, and that they would be spending another couple of days in Moscow before they went home. The message was clear, and I simply couldn’t pass up the chance of meeting the two heroes in person to shake their hands and ask them about their adventure.

Meet Rodrigo Dessaune, an IT businessman by profession, and a hopeless romantic at heart, as well as an extreme long-distance biker.

It actually became more than just a meeting, and turned into a full-length ‘interview’, with me asking lots of questions about the Brazilians’ adventures in Siberia. You can read it below – it’s a truly fascinating story!

Read on: Never-ending jetlag…

Back towards the end of the 1990s was when a KLer first had a child. My toast at the baby’s head-wetting went something like this: “At last we’ve assimilated viruses ourselves – and started to multiply!”

Since then we’ve been motivating employees in various ways to have more children! The more the merrier, I say. Yes, we’re quite family-friendly here at KL – kid-friendly even more so. It’s quite funny how the KL-kiddie situation has evolved: At first, every time a KL-cub entered this world we would all get together and not just wet, but fairly drench the poor little thing’s head :). A few years later, as the frequency went up dramatically we’d just chip in for a nice prezzie for the happy new mom and dad. Then, when the new-baby frequency moved from Hz to kHz, we’d simply get to hear the news at the water cooler. Seems a shame, but what can you do? We’ve a world to save too!

I don’t know how many KL-juniors we’ve got here now, but it’ll be a lot. With this in mind, as well as international child protection day in Russia (and many other countries) coming in early June, we organized a big children’s party at the office! Around 200 kids of our employees came to work with their mamas and papas to finally find out about the place one of their parents disappears to every week day, and to play, paint, eat, trampoline, and lots more besides.

Read on: chess, ice cream and viruses…

Hi folks!

Luckily, I dropped by our CeBIT stand this year in Hannover, where I happened to meet a very important VIP. I guess the pic will do the talking here…

My tie-wearing rule: minister level and up. That’ll be a check, then

Truly an honor, madam chancellor

Cybersecurity + uniformed security

Ah, that was easy. Nothing more I feel I need tell you about this exhibition…

Well… actually, just one thing. I have to admit again that CeBIT continues to become more and more boring. It’s still a huge exhibition and still a must-be-there for all IT companies worth their salt operating in Europe (especially Germany). But, alas, it’s not quite the same in terms of size and energy as it was in the past. Only two companies from the AV industry were there besides KL. Between the years 2000 and 2005 there was always at least a dozen AVers. Sometimes all in our pavilion at once!

That’s all folks! Have a nice day!

A few days ago our first – ah, no, second! – ever A-list guests dropped by our new office to see us. Ronald Noble, the Secretary General of INTERPOL, and our good acquaintance Noboru Nakatani, the head of INTERPOL’s new cyber division in Singapore, came to see us on a friendly visit that resulted in the official announcement of our cooperation to more effectively fight cybercrime on a global level.

More: Calling all cyberswine – watch out!…

Hi all!

Earlier today a very special visitor dropped by our office. The US Ambassador to Russia, the Honorable Michael A. McFaul, called in for an informal meeting – to chat among other things about US-Russian relations and the success of several Russian companies in the USA. He also took in the great, currently very snowy, panoramic view from my office window.

I found the Ambassador to be a charming individual, easy to talk to, and most pleasant to have an interesting conversation with. Our chat ended with our agreeing to continue friendly relations.