David Harley

David Harley
Born	1949
Residence	England
Fields	Author Information security Malware
Alma mater	Bangor University Open University

David Harley is an IT security researcher, author/editor and consultant living in the United Kingdom, known for his books on and research into malware, Mac security, anti-malware product testing and management of email abuse.

Career

After a checkered career that included spells in music, bar-work, work with the mentally handicapped, retail and the building trade, Harley entered the IT field in the late 1980s, working initially in administration at the Royal Free Hospital in London, and in 1989 went to work for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now merged into Cancer Research UK), where he held administrative and IT support roles and eventually moved into full-time security. In 2001 he joined the National Health Service where he ran the Threat Assessment Centre. After leaving the NHS in 2006 to work as an independent consultant, he worked closely with the security company ESET where since 2011 he holds the position of Senior Research Fellow, working with the Cyber Threat Analysis Center. In 2009 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO). He stood down in February 2012, when Righard Zwienenberg, president of AMTSO, joined ESET, as the AMTSO bylaws don't allow more than one Board member to represent the same AMTSO member entity. He runs the Mac Virus website, and formerly held an undefined executive role in AVIEN. He is a former Fellow of the British Computer Society: he explained in a blog article in 2014 that he was dropping his subscriptions to the BCS Institute and (ISC)2 (and therefore would no longer be entitled to continue using the acronyms CISSP, CITP and FBCS), and his reasons for so doing.

Writing

Harley is co-author (with Robert Slade and Urs Gattiker) of Viruses Revealed, and technical editor and principal author of The AVIEN Malware Defense Guide for the Enterprise.

He has also contributed chapters to a number of other security-related books, and sometimes writes for specialist security publishers such as Virus Bulletin and Elsevier. He often presents papers at specialist security conferences including Virus Bulletin, AVAR, and EICAR. He blogs regularly for ESET, and on occasion for Infosecurity Magazine, SC Magazine, (ISC)2, SecuriTeam, Mac Virus, and Small Blue-Green World. His Geek Peninsula metablog lists many of his papers and articles.

Other work

Some recordings, miscellaneous prose and verse are posted to his personal blog page.

Lyrics and MP3s from a 1980s cassette album are posted on the Sheer Bravado page.

Lyrics and MP3s from an unreleased album with Don MacLeod, Bob Theil, Bob Cairns and Pat Orchard are posted on the Diverse Brew sessions page.

Other 1980s lyrics and MP3s are posted on the Scriptwrecked sessions page.

Miscellaneous prose - some but not all connected to the security industry - is posted to the Miscellaneous Prose page.

Miscellaneous published verse is posted to the David Harley's Verse page.

Some parodies have been posted to the related Parodies Regained page.

Family life

Harley hardly ever talks publicly about his private life, but a biographical article for Virus Bulletin, and the dedications page to Viruses Revealed indicate that he has a daughter. He lives with his third wife in Shropshire, in the UK.

Bibliography

• Volume 3, "E-Mail Threats and Vulnerabilities."
• Chapter 3: "Malicious Macs: Malware and the Mac." Chapter 4: "Malware Detection and the Mac."
• (Editor, technical editor, several chapters.)
• Co-wrote Chapter 5, "Botnet Detection: Tools and Techniques" with Jim Binkley.
• Volume 3, "E-Mail Threats and Vulnerabilities."
• Massmailers: New Threats Need Novel Anti-Virus Measures.
• Co-wrote Chapter 49, "Medical Records Security" with Paul Brusil.
• Revised Chapter 17 "Viruses and Worms", Chapter 18 "Trojans."
• Chapter 17 "Viruses and Worms", Chapter 18 "Trojans."
• Co-Author.

Papers

Harley has published white papers, conference papers and presentations, and on-line articles with or on behalf of ESET since 2006. Some previous papers, articles and presentations are available from his Geek Peninsular blog.

External links

• —home page