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The future of cybersecurity passes through Malaga

2023-01-10T22:50:32.602Z


Google will open its first European center in the field this year, the university will launch a pioneering degree program and the Junta de Andalucía will centralize its attention to cyber incidents in the city


In 1988, a teenager looked at his computer in astonishment: there was a ball bouncing on the screen.

His machine had been infected with one of the first computer viruses, Ping Pong, which he himself figured out how to disable.

Years later, during his computer science studies, a professor challenged him to clean the infected computers of the faculty.

He got it too.

That self-taught boy, Bernardo Quintero, was part of the foundation of one of the first Spanish computer security companies, Hispasec, in 1998. It all happened in Malaga.

And it was key for Google to choose this city to open its first cybersecurity center in Europe.

It will be this year when the new space that the Junta de Andalucía has promoted to centralize its attention to cyber incidents in the public network will also arrive,

In the technological city that is Malaga, cybersecurity has fit like a glove.

It has done so thanks to three decades during which a group of pioneers has been weaving the ideal wickers.

Those young people had the talent —and the luck— to train at the same time that computer viruses were being developed.

Later they added the courage to undertake and stay at home.

Belonging to a generation that aspired to succeed in Madrid or abroad, they preferred their land.

They knew before anyone else that it was possible.

And they felt supported by the University of Malaga, crucial in their training and in the special attention to cybersecurity since the 1990s, when the NICS Lab research group led by Javier López, a professor at the School of Computer Engineering, was created.

More information

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"When Hispasec was born, computer security was a wasteland," recalls Fernando Ramírez almost 25 years later, when the company is still important and has fifty employees.

The company is the germ of almost everything that happened later in Malaga.

Bernardo Quintero worked in those offices until he founded VirusTotal, which was spun off from the parent company.

So did Sergio de los Santos.

“Today it has been shown that we were not so crazy when we were interested in all this 30 years ago,” stresses De los Santos, who leads innovation in cybersecurity and

cloud

at Telefónica Tech, whose Malaga headquarters employ some 20 people.

The company has also promoted 42, training space.

Google acquired VirusTotal in 2012, but Quintero managed to keep the headquarters in Malaga.

When Chema Alonso signed De los Santos for Telefónica, he did the same.

Other pioneers made the journey, such as Ismael Valenzuela, who founded G2 Security in 2000. He first worked for Novasoft, iSoft and McAfee from Malaga.

Since 2014 he has worked in the United States and is now a director of BlackBerry.

He lives in New Jersey, but attends EL PAÍS from Washington.

"Now you look back and you realize, but we were not aware of what we were doing," says the one who maintains that beyond the quality of life or its communications, the success of the capital of Malaga in cybersecurity is a sum of public factors -such as the promotion of the Technological Park of Andalusia— and business together with the university.

The opening of the first Google cybersecurity center of excellence in Europe, scheduled for mid-2023, builds on the foundations propped up in previous decades.

It will be a space dedicated to research, training and holding events, but it will also have a

start-up accelerator

of the sector.

The company also hopes to open up to the city.

That is why they have chosen the old Military Government building next to the Port of Malaga, which they have completely renovated.

You can already see your logo on the entrance gate.

Next to it, the Andalusian Cybersecurity Center will be installed, which will focus on the monitoring and detection of cyber-incidents in the Administration network and where training will also be promoted.

"Málaga was the city for it," says Antonio Sanz, the Minister of the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification of the Andalusian Junta.

Lack of offices and housing prices

"The important thing is that growth has not been artificial: cybersecurity is important today because of everything that has happened before," summarizes Sergio de los Santos.

The powerful local firms have been joined by international companies such as Dekra or Babel.

Also departments of large companies, from Indra to Ernst & Young or Accenture, all located in the PTA, as well as Vodafone, Banco Santander or CapGemini.

"I would love for Apple or Microsoft to be here as well, so much talent in a space like this would benefit everyone," says Bernardo Quintero, who together with Javier López leads the creation of the Malaga Cybersecurity Cluster, which will soon become the Andalusian Cluster. .

The initiative aims to bring together all the information security actors in the region to unify efforts,

On a quantitative level, Malaga is still far from big cities like Madrid or Barcelona.

And even more important cybersecurity

hubs

such as the one in Cork (Ireland).

The person in charge of Google maintains, in addition, that there is still a long way to go in the sector.

"We are building and we must avoid triumphalism," Quintero says.

“The wickers are there and the entire Costa del Sol, beyond the capital, has gained a lot from teleworking.

But there are problems like the lack of offices”, insists Fernando Denis.

These are the limitations of a capital that does not reach 600,000 inhabitants, whose housing prices are skyrocketing between tourism and the boost of technology.

"There are many things to improve, but as long as it does not become a prohibitive place, it will continue to be attractive," says Ismael Valenzuela, who believes that the public administration has a lot to say there.

Also educationally.

The university itself has responded with a pioneering Degree in Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence that will have 65 students a year.

“A great leap forward”, concludes Javier López.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-10

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