Meet One Of The Good Guys!

Have you ever wondered how the anti-virus folks actually identify and clean computer viruses? What are those people like? Well I've been there and I would like to introduce you to Jimmy Kuo a research fellow at McAfee.

Jimmy and I worked together at McAfee in the mid '90's. He is one of the classiest people with whom I've had the pleasure of working and, indeed, knowing. Jimmy is a good guy. He is polite, soft-spoken and sharp as a tack. The virus writers know Jimmy too, and they tremble.

Tracking down and eliminating computer viruses is more art than science. It requires an instinct which can not be taught. Either you have it or you don't. The ability to translate the raw hexadecimal numbers of a memory dump into CPU instructions in your head on the fly and innately understand the program which those instructions are forming is a prerequisite for the job. Believe me, there are not many people alive who can do it. Jimmy can.

See what Jimmy Kuo is up to and read the recollections of his encounter in 1999 with Melissa -- the first destructive mass emailed virus here.