Why is it so important for Kaspersky Lab—as a business—to stay ahead of new computer threats?

Businesses both large and small, as well as most people with home computers or smart phones, have had unfortunate experiences with computer viruses. Once a virus has infiltrated a network or a device—a computer, tablet, PDA, or cell phone—it replicates and begins causing irritating slowdowns or worse, destroying data or stealing a user’s identity.

Of the many software programs designed to catch and/or stop viruses and worms, those produced by Kaspersky Lab are among the most popular and the most effective. The company was founded by Russianborn Eugene Kaspersky. Kaspersky, an engineer, became interested in computer viruses when his own computer was attacked by the notorious Cascade virus in 1989. He developed a disinfection utility for it, then went on to compile a catalog of viruses and disinfection utilities. This database now includes 4 million entries. In 1997, he and several colleagues founded Kaspersky Lab.

With headquarters in Moscow and branches worldwide, the company has won many awards for its antivirus software packages. Only four years after establishing a presence in the Americas, Kaspersky Lab won an award for best e-mail security system. Today, Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held antimalware company, with products for both corporate networks and home PC users in almost every country in the world. More than 300 million users rely on Kaspersky products for their security, and 150,000 new users join them every week.

One of Kaspersky Lab’s success stories involves the Austrian National Tourist Office, the country’s official tourist organization. It has 250 employees in 30 offices in Austria and in cities around the world, including New York, Sydney, Beijing, and Singapore. The tourist office’s international Web site has pages in many languages and showcases Austria’s many attractions for visitors. The office’s travel services are Web based, and its employees rely constantly on the Internet for online research and e-mail from their colleagues in different branches. Well aware of the growing worldwide risk of viruses and other malware, the tourist office decided it needed a better security system.

The tourist office consulted the Austrian IT subsidiary Austrian Info Systems GmbH, which decided that the best solution would be to adopt the entire range of products in the Kaspersky Anti-Virus Business Optimal package. From the tourist bureau’s home office in Vienna, the Kaspersky Administration Kit runs centralized monitoring and administration of all the office’s servers and all of its antivirus protection. Other Kaspersky antivirus utilities protect all of the 250 workstations worldwide, the 25 file servers, and the 550 mailboxes making up the exchange infrastructure. A free administration kit helps Austrian Info Systems make regular searches of the tourist office’s network for viruses.

For the home computer user, Kaspersky Lab offers programs that help prevent various forms of identity theft; offer protection against viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, and so on; and scan Web sites for malware. As more Mac users store data in the “cloud,” on Internet servers, their computers can also become infected with viruses and other malware, so Kaspersky Lab also offers a Mac version of its antivirus software. And as smart phone users increasingly use their hand-held devices as PCs, they have a mobile security program as well.

As the company celebrated its 12th anniversary recently, its Web site declared that its “most valuable asset is the wealth of experience and knowledge it has gained in . . . combating viruses and other IT threats, enabling us to pre-empt trends in malware development. This helps us to remain one step ahead of the competition and provide our users with the most reliable protection from new types of attack.”