Dr. Vesselin Vladimirov Bontchev

Dr. Vesselin Bontchev was born in Varna, Bulgaria. He graduated from the Technical University of Sofia in 1985 with an M.Sc. in computer science (systems programming). He worked for the university's Laboratory for Microprocessors and Microcomputers and for the Institute of Industrial Cybernetics and Robotics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, building expert systems. In 1988, he became interested in computer viruses and began producing freeware anti-virus programs. Two years later he became the Director of the Laboratory of Computer Virology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. From 1991 to 1995 he worked as a research associate at the Virus Test Center, University of Hamburg, Germany, where he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on computer viruses.

Since 1990, Dr. Bontchev has been the Bulgarian representative in IFIP's TC-11 (“Computers & Security”). He is also a founding member of CARO (the Computer Anti-virus Researchers' Organization) and a founding member of VSI (the Virus Security Institute).

Between 1995 and 2011 Dr. Bontchev worked for FRISK Software International in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he was involved in the development of the anti-virus package F-PROT and specialized in macro virus research.

Dr. Bontchev presently works at the National Laboratory of Computer Virology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, Bulgaria.