3 years already!

A little over 3 years ago I started working for Paretologic. This was my first job since moving to Canada after completing a Master’s degree in Information Systems from my native country, France.

My first position was Technical Support Specialist. My job was to help customers remove spyware infections using manual tools. I still remember Vundo and PSGuard being the nasty threats that were difficult to remove. Helping a customer get rid of a virus is a pretty good feeling… if that works of course Some people are really friendly, some speak different languages, some tell you stories about their past…

After that I was promoted to a different position, part of the “SWAT” team (Spyware Analysis Team). The first thing my new boss asked me to do was to download spyware for two months. So, I spent my time looking on the web for bad stuff and downloaded it. Let me tell you that after a week, you begin to see this as a fairly laborious process, especially since I had no specific instructions on how to do it.

In the meantime, my friend JP, AKA TinFoilHatMan, was hired. As we both spoke French, we had an immediate connection. I started gaining more experience with computer security, began reading white papers and started my own little projects after work. Some time after, I was inspired to create my first Honeypot. I remember being thrilled about it. It took me a week-end to develop a prototype that was to amaze me for some time. Finally, we had an automated system capable of capturing the latest threats without any interaction needed!

My friend JP then introduced me to an unfamiliar world: Linux. I instantly found it to be very powerful and saw a huge potential in it for our research. He created the R.I.T.E environment which then allowed me to finalize another project that I am proud of: LogMachine(SandBox). Now, all our samples were automatically analyzed in a real environment (R.I.T.E) with simulated user interaction.

This past year I met two famous people in the security industry: Mikko H. Hyppönen (F-Secure) and Alex Eckelberry (Sunbelt Software). I highly regard those guys for their wealth of knowledge and their personality. Speaking of personality, I can’t forget to mention Chris Boyd, AKA PaperGhost. I’ve had many conversations with him and he’s been kind enough to link us from his blog. Another amazing guy, full of fire and without fears.

 I have gained more knowledge over these past years, but I feel there is so much more out there yet to know! After I graduated I knew I was interested in something that had to do with computers… Just like when I was 14, and got to test drive Cabri  (interactive geometry software) on a Mac, software which you find on today’s Texas Instruments calculators.

I had no clue about ending up in the security field, however, this is something that I found to be extremely exciting. There are new challenges every day.

Jerome Segura