Hi friends.
I'm here to answer questions, talk the talk, and really go through all of this 'funness'.
We do not mislead customers or prospective customers. Plain and simple.
When we create malware samples to test with, we employ the same methods and tools that hackers do, including creating mutations and packing the samples, to better emulate what attackers do for more meaningful testing. I'd be happy to walk through any of this with anyone, but for the tests I've been running, I am using 'how-tos' found on some less than favorable websites along with software that is free and widely distributed.
We are not running or using any tool that isn’t already in an attacker’s arsenal. Any time you pack a real file, there is a chance that the original piece of software will break. This happens every now and then; you're messing with the file after all. It's like when we shaved Nic's head at Spiceworld - we messed with his image and then NOBODY took him seriously.
Is this whole process perfect? No. But the steps we take are the same steps we are seeing in the real world.
Addressing Spiceworld 15 - That was pre-Bowtie and Beards (Matt and I). The session was a cluster, there were issues of promises made and session ideas, but those ideas fell through from my understanding. That is why Matt and I went big last year at Spiceworld, coming out and not pushing the product and inviting members to test for themselves. This is the same dialogue we are continuing to have there, here, and elsewhere. That's the past, let's move on.