Alex Eckelberry

Alex Eckelberry, born in Paris, France, is an American entrepreneur and technology executive. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Runaware, Inc. a board member of StopBadware, a board member of BlueStripe Software and is involved in a variety of technology consulting projects. Most recently, he was the president of the security business unit for GFI Software. Previously he was CEO of Sunbelt Software for eight years up to the sale of company to GFI Software. While at Sunbelt Software, he was responsible for the development and introduction of a number of security and IT infrastructure products targeted primarily at the business market, including iHateSpam, ServerVision, iHateSpam for Exchange, LanHound, Ninja Email Security, CounterSpy and CounterSpy Enterprise, and VIPRE antivirus. In addition, he also acquired the Kerio firewall technology from Kerio Technologies, Inc., incorporating parts of the technology into VIPRE Premium (now VIPRE Internet Security).

Prior Technology Experience
Eckelberry worked in technology throughout the late 80s and 90s. He started his career at Borland International in 1987, and then went to Aegis Development (acquired by Oxxi). Later, he worked at Quarterdeck Corporation for nearly seven years, where he worked in a variety of roles, including VP of World Wide Marketing and VP and General Manager, Utilities Business Unit. While he was a business unit manager, he oversaw development of a number of well-known products, including CleanSweep, DESQview and QEMM.

After Quarterdeck, he went to startup Mijenix, Inc., where he was executive vice president, up to its sale to Kroll Ontrack. While at Mijenix, he was responsible for the launch of a number of PC utility products, including Fix-It Utilities, ZipMagic and FreeSpace.

Microsoft and Giant Company Acquisition
While at Sunbelt, Eckelberry had originally created CounterSpy as a co-development effort with Giant Company. When Giant Company was acquired in December 2004 by Microsoft, Eckelberry pointed out that there were certain continuing obligations to Sunbelt, which resulted in considerable public scrutiny of the acquisition. The situation was ultimately resolved amicably by Eckelberry with Microsoft.

Julie Amero case
Eckelberry was instrumental in getting a major conviction overturned against a substitute school teacher in Connecticut. In January 5, 2007, Julie Amero, a substitute school teacher in Norwich, CT, was convicted on four felony counts for endangering the morals of a child. After Eckelberry learned of the case, he made it a national cause célèbre by writing extensively about it on his blog, resulting in press on Good Morning America, USA Today, FoxNews, National Public Radio, as well as a broad range of tech publications.

Through a friendship with Ari Schwartz (then director of the Center for Democracy and Technology) and the assistance of security researcher Eric Howes, pro bono legal assistance was ultimately found for Amero, and the conviction was overturned. In addition, Eckelberry led a team of forensic researchers to publish a forensic analysis of the trial transcript. Ultimately, Amero plead to a minor misdemeanor charge. His experience with the Amero case led him to found the Julie Group, a non-profit group dedicated to assisting in injustices at the intersection of technology and law.

Security industry involvement
Eckelberry is extensively involved with the security industry and has been blogging and writing about the industry for a number of years. In 2006, he launched the first all-volunteer phishing takedown service, PIRT, with Paul Laudanski of CastleCops. In 2008, he gave the keynote address at the worldwide Virus Bulletin conference and has written several articles for Virus Bulletin magazine – on ethics in the antivirus industry and on using Google to find vulnerabilities in websites. Google publicly recognized his efforts in 2006, along with a number of other security researchers for their assistance with Google security. Eckelberry is a member of the board of directors of StopBadware, a non-profit anti-malware organization that is dedicated to making the Web safer through the prevention, mitigation, and remediation of badware websites.