Fortinet Blog | News and Threat Research

Was it for Lisbon’s unexpected rainy weather or was this year’s EICAR conference really disappointing?

I had very much enjoyed it two years ago, with excellent technical talks, but this year seemed different. Our talk - on crawling Android marketplaces for new malware was well received, I believe, but I wish I had had more fun. I don’t want to sound like an awful snob - our presentation certainly wasn’t perfect - but at least I think people approve / understand why our paper was accepted.

This year’s conference was the first time ever I had to listen to talks that should never have been accepted (no, I won’t give away any names). I recall other conferences I attended (VB, Insomni’hack, ShmooCon…) and this never happened. Of course, one cannot be enthusiastic about all talks, but at least, it somehow seemed logical the talk had been accepted.

Reviewers, I pledge for a stronger review. We don’t need hundreds of conferences and papers, but we need quality. I want to read papers that are technically sound and precise, papers that provide new information I haven’t heard yet. For academic papers, I also expect a state of the art with bibliographical references that explain what’s the scientific contribution. At EICAR, 6/14 did not meet those basic conditions…

On a positive note, I enjoyed the networking aspect of the conference.

– the Crypto Girl