September 2, 2016 EddyWillems

About me

                  Eddy Willems – Security Evangelist

This bio page is an updated copy of my original ‘about me’ page at www.anti-malware.info.

I was born in 1962. I am married with Nadine and we have a child called Frank.  I studied Computer Sciences at IHB and VUB Brussels. I started working as a Systems Analyst in 1984.

In 1989 I became interested in viruses: I was the first in Belgium to have a solution for the ‘aids-information’-diskette Trojan incident. Some TV-journals and papers are proof of this. From that time on I started to gather information about computer viruses and Anti-Virus software. In 1991 I became a founding member of EICAR (European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research). Over the years I have maintained a reference library of software, books and almost everything that has been published in the computer security field. I am also a participant in Joe Wells’ Virus Wildlist (different name soon) since 1995. I am reporting for Belgium and Luxembourg and for the EICAR Organisation (Europe). Since 1996 I’m a known public speaker about security and especially malware. I also wrote the original “Virus Article” for the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (US Ed. 1997-..). In 1999 I became the EICAR-News Editor. It is the magazine of the known EICAR Organisation. In May 2000 the Belgian Government started with the E-Security Team on the B.I.P.T. Website. This team provided quick Anti-Virus and Security information to the Belgian people. I was the only known Anti-Virus Expert within this team. In March 2001 I became the EICAR news magazine editor. Since May 2005 I am the Director of Press and Information for EICAR. My title was changed later to Director AV Security Industry Relationships (Board Member). EICAR is one of the oldest security organizations in the world. I am also a co-founder of this organization.

I have been working as malware researcher and Anti-Malware Technology Expert for the anti-virus industry (NOXS (a Westcon Group Company), McAfee, TrendMicro and Symantec) and as Security Evangelist for Kaspersky Lab in the past. In 2010 I became a member of the AMTSO (Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization) (press committee) organisation. I was co-opted as a board member in May 2012 by the AMTSO board and re-elected twice after that.

Since the beginning of 2010 I work as Security Evangelist and Global Security Officer for G DATA CyberDefense AG. I am professionally occupied with anti-malware and security research, consultancy, training and communication with press, distributors, resellers and endusers.

I write articles, blogs and whitepapers for several international magazines and publications and I often speak at known security conferences like Virus Bulletin, EICAR, AVAR, InfoSecurity, CeBIT, etc. I’m also a recognized security media expert having experience with live tv ranging from local Benelux to international TV stations like CNN, Al Jazeera and TRT World. For the past three decades, I have been the cyber security expert from Belgium who has been most frequently quoted internationally.

End of 2014 I became a board member of LSEC (Leaders in Security) another non-profit security organization.

I left the board of AMTSO July 2019.

End of 2019 I became a board member of AVAR (Association of Anti Virus Asia Researchers).

I am the first and only Belgian being on the board (2 times) of 3 (EICAR, AVAR and LSEC before EICAR, AMTSO and LSEC) international security organisations at the same time.

I am an inspiring speaker and I’m giving lectures, keynotes (including TEDx: A Tale of Two Floppies) and presentations worldwide for a very diverse audience from children to experts. You can book me for an interesting inspiring keynote or lecture via my speakers offices: Read-My-Lips , Speakersbase , A-Speakers, All American Speakers or Speaking.com . I have given lectures and keynotes in over 30 countries.

I published my first book ‘Cybergevaar‘ (Lannoo) in 2013. A German translation became available ‘Cybergefahr‘ (Springer) in 2015. An updated and expanded English edition ‘Cyberdanger‘ (Springer) was published in 2019. In 2020 together with co-author Alain Dierckx I published my first SF Cyberthriller ‘Het Virus‘ (Lannoo).

I still own one of the last remaining copies of the first ransomware, the AIDS information trojan (1989), worldwide.

Some history: In 1995 I started with www.wavci.com . This site wanted to become the reference in independent anti-malware advice and information. It is also known as the first Belgian anti-virus page and one of the oldest security sites on the Web. This site renewed in September 2010  and redirected to www.anti-malware.info . The site still exists but isn’t updated anymore with content. You can find it as well at the Internet Archive. I still recommend the ‘press/media page’ and the ‘family/friends page’ if you want to know more old stuff about me. Nowadays www.wavci.com redirects to this site.

A bio and several press pictures (see also below) are available on demand. I speak Dutch, English, French and a little bit German. However if you send me an email, I will only reply in English or Dutch.

How to contact me

You can contact me via the email-address below or via similar addresses from my other domains like anti-virus.be, etc. Press people, researchers and journalists may contact me directly on my phone +32 475 83 29 71 or by direct message via my social media channels X(Twitter) or LinkedIn and also via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram. I am available 24×7!

You can contact me via the email-address ‘info (at) wavci (dot) com’ or via my G DATA email-address. Don’t forget of course to replace ‘at’ with @ and ‘dot’ with . to create a normal email address, this is done for anti-spam purposes.

Press pictures free available

You can download some hi-res press pictures here (35 Mb) and other hi-res press pictures here (9 Mb) and use them for your publications.

This site is and will remain always completely independent!

BIO’s from Eddy on other websites