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Billionaire security guard "I am saving the world for fun," says Eugene Kaspersky. "I have enough money." Photo: Stephen Voss/Wired

He's a virus killer whose name can be found inside tens of millions of computers worldwide - and he sees vistas of cyber-warfare everywhere he looks. The FBI trusts him, even though he also counts Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, as a client. Given that Eugene Kaspersky's company, Kaspersky Lab, is well on its way to becoming the dominant player in the world of computer security, it's perhaps not surprising that the 47-year-old Muscovite believes that cyber-crime, in all its hues, is currently the biggest threat facing the global economy. It's big business.

He rattles off the threats: tailor-made cyber-weapons designed to destroy data at a specified time; new infection methods designed to target big business; malware (malicious software used to disrupt computer operations) attached to app stores that steal data from mobile phones; co-ordinated attacks on government communications and infrastructure. Not to mention the common banking frauds that rob the IT specialists employed by the world's major banking and financial institutions of their sleep every night. "And the number-one problem?" booms the slightly rumpled CEO, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. "Cyber-weapons and cyber-espionage." And he's happy to identify the number-one offender, too. "China," he says emphatically.

The best software engineers are Russian Russian cyber-criminals are the best also.

Kaspersky now presides over a $US612-million-a-year private-tech empire, operating in nearly 200 countries. The company employs 2700 virus specialists and licenses its products to behemoths such as Microsoft, Cisco and IBM. "We are number four by revenue," he says. That is, number four after anti-virus giants Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro.

Source codes as a military cadet in the 1980s, Eugene Kaspersky studied at the KGB-administered Institute of Cryptography, Telecommunications and Computer Science.

Kaspersky's personal wealth is estimated to be $US1.18 billion. Out of 131 dollar-billionaires in Russia, Kaspersky is ranked 114. Not that money gets him out of bed in the morning, he insists. "I am saving the world for fun. I have enough money. Money has to be like oxygen. You have to have enough. I have enough."

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At Kaspersky Lab headquarters in the industrial outskirts of Moscow, most of the geeks wandering its corridors look disconcertingly young - like 14. The software is installed in the computers of some 300 million users worldwide, who rely on it to be protected from viruses, worms, Trojan malware (it only looks like it's doing what the user wants), spyware and other malicious software, or malware, that is designed to steal information, money and identity. With each detection of a threat, Kaspersky Lab is able to add to its formidable database of known malware.

I'm permitted to enter only a few work areas. Technical manuals and the remains of disembowelled computers are strewn across desktops while, in common areas, employees huddle together in groups, occasionally erupting in spontaneous bouts of applause as they cheer themselves on to their next task. The scene is reminiscent of those in The Social Network, except this isn't Facebook, we're not in Palo Alto and the company CEO isn't a socially challenged nerd. On the contrary, Kaspersky is charmingly affable - chatty even - and appears to be liked and respected by his workforce. They refer to him as the Che Guevara of internet security. On the day I visit, the temperature plummets to an uninviting -20C. My press contact, Anton Shingarev, walks me to the boss's office, which is surprisingly small. "I'm not here that often," Kaspersky explains in half-apology.

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Meet Eugene Kaspersky: the man on a mission to wage war against - and kill - the computer virus