MALWARE, VIRUSES, TROJANS... What is it like to be a MALWARE researcher? With Marc Rivero

The rapper Tote King had that line about Norton being the one who made the viruses. And though it’s a wisecrack, it isn’t entirely wrong as a way to start an honest conversation about malware. Do you really need an antivirus? Is there someone on the other side watching while a bug installs itself on your computer without you noticing? And what exactly is a virus, a trojan or malware, given we use the words as if they were the same and they aren’t? To clear it up I sit down with Marc Rivero, a malware researcher of the kind who’ve spent years in the trenches and in the community.

Marc didn’t get here by a straight road. He studied a vocational qualification in systems administration in Barcelona and started out opening a WordPress blog to post what he did in class. From there to analysing threats and working in malware intelligence. This channel was born precisely for that, to map the many professions that fit inside cybersecurity, because when someone says they want to work in cyber they have no idea how many branches lie beneath. Marc’s, malware analysis, is one of the most fascinating.