AVAR 2013 Conference Preview

First published: 11^th November 2013

The 16th Association of Anti-Virus Asia Researchers (AVAR) International Conference 2013 will be held in Chennai, Tamilnadu, India. The AVAR Conference is the largest Asia Pacific conference on anti-malware. It has previously been held in Japan, China, Australia and this year it returns to India for the second time.

The conference runs from the 4th to 7th of December, 2013, starting with the Welcome Reception on Wednesday evening to the post-conference city tours on Saturday. The keynote speech is by Dennis Batchelder, Partner Program Manager at the Microsoft Malware Protection Centre.

The speeches cover a wide variety of topics, here they are grouped into a somewhat arbitary classification:

Testing and Cooperation

• "Real World Testing", Peter Stelzhammer, Philippe Rodlach, AV-Comparatives
• "The Real Time Threat List", Righard Zwienenberg, ESET, Philipp Wolf, Avira
• "CMX: Clean File Metadata Exchange System", Igor Muttik, McAfee & Mark Kennedy, Symantec

Analysis and Intelligence

• "Top Asia-Pacific cyber threats based on DNS data analysis", Erik Wu, Nominum
• "In-depth analysis of Cutwail botnet", Dragos Gavrilut, Cristina Vatamanu, Razvan Benchea, Octav Minea, Alexandru Maximciuc, Doina Cosova, Bitdefender
• "Automated Malware (mis) Classification & Challenges", Rajesh Nikam, Quick Heal Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• "Are you ready for Game-rue" , Hrushikesh Kalburgi & Jyotsna Jain, Quick Heal Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• "Hey Android, are you Frightened of FakeAV plus Ransomware", Rowland Yu, SophosLab

Detection and Removal

• "From DNA sequence variation to NET bits and bobs", Andrei Saygo, Eoin Ward, Mathieu Létourneau, Microsoft
• "Generic System Cure", Tsahi Carmona & Alex Polischuk, Total Defense Inc.
• "Antivirus UltraSound ­ Your Baby Is A Breach Detection System", Randy Abrams, NSS Labs
• "More Sand than Box", Gregory Panakkal, K7 Computing
• "Mobile Web Reputation: Addressing Evolving Mobile Threats", Paul J.S. Oliveria, Trend Micro

Social, Business and Surveillance

• "The Social Media Connection", Righard Zwienenberg, ESET
• "Death of a Salesforce whatever happened to anti-virus", David Harley, ESET & Larry Bridwell
• "Hiding from the Big Brother", Evgeny Kolotinsky, Kirill Blazhennov, Kaspersky Lab

Cloud

• "Security from the Cloud - How Big Data Helps Us Protect You", Benjamin S. Rivera, Trend Micro
• "Fast data delivery from a clouds", Lukas Hasik, Petr Chytil, AVAST

The line-up has a lot to offer anyone involved in protecting their organisation against information security threats, and specialists in the anti-malware field.

Formerly called Madras, Chennai is on the Coromandel coast of southern India. Chennai has a rich heritage and is one of the prettiest metropolitan cities in India, mixing the elegance of the past with the vibrancy of today. Also referred to as "the Gateway to the South India" and the "Cultural Capital of South India”, the Institute of Competitiveness declared it the most liveable city in India.

Conference details and registration can be found on the Chennai 2013 section of the AVAR website.