How a Spanish virus brought Google to Málaga

After 33 years, Bernardo Quintero decided it was time to find the person who changed his life – the anonymous programmer who created a computer virus that infected his university decades earlier.

The virus is called Malaga virusIt was mostly harmless. But the challenge of defeating it sparked Quintero’s passion for cybersecurity, eventually leading him to found it Total virusa startup acquired by Google in 2012. This acquisition brought Google’s leading European cybersecurity center to Malaga, turning the Spanish city into a technology hub.

It’s all because of a little malware created by someone Quintero never knew his identity. Moved by nostalgia and gratitude, Quintero launched research earlier this year. He asked the Spanish media to amplify his quest for advice. He delved back into the virus’s code, looking for clues that his 18-year-old self might have missed. In the end, he solved the puzzle, and participated in the bitter solution in an instant Share LinkedIn That spread quickly.

The story begins in 1992, when a teacher asked the young Quintero to create an anti-virus program for a 2,610-byte program that spread across computers at the Polytechnic School of Málaga. “This challenge in my first year at university sparked a deep interest in computer viruses and security, and without it my path might have been very different,” Quintero told TechCrunch.

Quintero’s research was fueled by his programming instincts. Earlier this year, he said Step down From his role as team manager to “back to the cave, to the Google basement.” He did not leave the company. Instead, he returned to Tinkering and experimenting No administrative tasks.

This patchwork mentality also led him to revisit the Malaga virus and look for details he had missed years earlier. Initially, he found parts of the signature, but thanks to another security expert, he discovered a later version of the virus with a clearer signal: “KIKESOYYO.” “Kike soy yo” can be translated as “I’m Kike”, which is a common nickname for “Enrique”.

Around the same time, Quintero received a direct message from a man who is now the general coordinator of digital transformation for the Spanish city of Cordoba and who claimed to have witnessed one of his colleagues at the École Polytechnique creating the virus. Many details were added, but one in particular stood out: The man knew that the virus’s hidden message — called a payload, in cybersecurity terms — was a statement condemning the Basque terrorist group ETA, a fact Quintero never revealed.

The guide then gave Quintero a name – Antonio Astorga – but also shared the news of his death.

This hit Quintero like a ton of bricks. Now, he would never be able to ask Antonio about Kiki. But he continued to follow the lead, and the plot twist came from Antonio’s sister, who revealed that his first name was actually Antonio Enrique. To his family, he was Kiki.

The cancer took Antonio Enrique Astorga before Quintero could thank him in person, but the story doesn’t stop there. Quintero’s LinkedIn post sheds new light on the legacy of “a great colleague who deserves to be recognized as a pioneer in cybersecurity in Malaga” — and not just to help Quintero discover his vocation.

According to his friend, the Astorga virus had no other goal than to spread his anti-terrorism message and prove himself as a programmer. In contrast to Quintero’s path, Astorga’s interest in information technology continued, and he became a computing teacher at a high school that named its IT class after him in his memory.

Astorga’s legacy also lives on beyond these walls, and not just through his students. One of his sons, Sergio, is a recent software engineering graduate with an interest in cybersecurity and quantum computing — a useful connection for Quintero. “Being able to close this circle now, and see new generations building on it, is deeply meaningful to me,” Quintero said.

For Quintero, who expects their paths to cross again, Sergio “is very representative of the talent being formed in Malaga today.” This in turn is a result of VirusTotal eventually forming a root Become the Safety Engineering Center at Google (GSEC) and leading the collaboration with the University of Malaga that has made the city a true hub of cybersecurity talent.