September 2, 2016 EddyWillems

About me

                  Eddy Willems – Security Evangelist

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 cyber security. 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 (renamed as ThreatList and now owned by AMTSO) since 1995. I am reporting for Belgium and Luxembourg and for the EICAR Organization (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 Organization. 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 public. I was the only known security expert within this team. In March 2001 I became the EICAR news magazine editor.  I became the Director of Press and Information for EICAR in May 2005. My title was changed later to Director 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 Security Technology Expert for the security industry (NOXS (a Westcon-Comstor Company) representing McAfee, TrendMicro and Symantec) and as Security Evangelist for Kaspersky in the past.

In 2010 I became a member of the AMTSO (Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization) organization. I was co-opted as a board member in May 2012 by the AMTSO board and re-elected twice after that. I left the board of AMTSO July 2019.

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

I was a board member of AVAR (Association of Anti Virus Asia Researchers) from November 2019 until December 2024.

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

Since 2023 I’m on the Advisory Board of the ThreatList (formerly The WildList by Joe Wells) which is now owned by the AMTSO organization.

From February 2010 until November 2024, I’ve been serving as Security Evangelist and Global Security Officer for G DATA CyberDefense.

Since the end of November 2024, I am an independent Security Evangelist at WAVCi, my own company. I am still professionally occupied with anti-malware and security research, consultancy, training and communication with press, industry experts and the general public.

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, RISE, FIRST, Underground Economy, 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. Since 1989, I am Belgian’s internationally most quoted cyber security expert.

I am also Chief Operating Officer Software (COO) of the Clean Software Alliance (CSA) since July 2024.

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 or keynotes in over 40 countries and 5 continents.

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, we published our first SF Cyberthriller ‘Het Virus‘ (Lannoo). The English version of this book, ‘The Virus’, is coming soon.

I still own the last remaining physical copy 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 security information. It is also known as the first Belgian security 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 to check the ‘press/media page’ and the ‘family/friends page’ on that old site, if you want to know more old stuff about me. Nowadays www.wavci.com redirects to this site (see the logo at the end of this page).

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

If you have media related questions about a security topic or if you want to book me for a keynote or a lecture, you may contact me!

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!

For interviews and other media related questions please contact me via the email-address ‘press (at) wavci (dot) com’ .

If you want to book me for a keynote or a lecture please contact me via the email-address ‘info (at) wavci (dot) com’ .

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 here some hi-res press pictures (14 Mb – you can ‘rightclick’ and download the archive) and use them for your publications. More pictures are available on request.

This site is and will remain always completely independent!

Inspiring with passion and storytelling

 

BIO’s of Eddy on other websites