Malcon wants to bring malware writers out of the shadows

The computer security community is used to vilifying the hackers and malware authors who choose to use their talents for evil, instead of good. Now a new hacking conference is trying to bring malware authors out of the shadows and wondering, in the words of Rodney King, if we "all just can't get along."

Malcon, a security show scheduled for December in Mumbai, India, is billed as the first of its kind: a "common platform" for the world's most talented Virus authors, exploit writers and toolkit creators -- and the security pros who spend careers trying to thwart or apprhenend them. The conference is the brainchild of Rajshekhar Murthy, a Mumbai-based IT security expert, and head of Information Security at an Indian telecommunications firm. (Murthy asked Threatpost to withold the name of his employer.)

In a phone interview with Threatpost, Murthy said the Malcon conference was in the spirit of DEFCON, the now (in)famous hacking conference that is held each year in Las Vegas. Like DEFCON, Malcon is intended to raise the level of security awareness within the IT community by fostering more direct interactions between malware authors and the security pros hired to thwart them.