22 Chapter 1 · Customer Power and AV Wannabes Corporate Anti-virus Specialist One of the least recognized factors in the anti-virus research equation is that there are people in corporate enterprises and the public sector who fight viruses and other mal- ware on a daily basis. Some of these people know the AV vendors products inside out, but they also understand how to reverse engineer viruses and analyze code. These indi- viduals also must directly interact with end-users and management, if they are to be effective in their job. Not all of these individuals are true researchers, but many of them are as knowledgeable as specialists within AV companies and make just as important a contribution. While there are many individuals jointly responsible for a single product or one specialist area within a security company, corporate security specialists are character- istically responsible for many areas and report to all levels of management. A bad decision on their part could cost their employers millions of dollars in lost productivity, data loss, and lost income. There are two major sources of frustration for these individuals. If they are doing their job successfully, the organization runs smoothly, at least in terms of freedom from the effects of malicious code or over-intrusive security software.Thus, the best result their management can hope for is to hear nothing but silence from these specialists, because there are no prob- lems to report. Accordingly, they often don't get a great deal of recognition and respect, and the importance of their work can be overlooked entirely, sometimes to the point where the necessity of their role is called into question. Furthermore, other researchers and many of the