The virus, called Virus Malaga, was mostly harmless. But the challenge of defeating it sparked Quintero's passion for cybersecurity, eventually leading him to found VirusTotal, a startup that Google acquired in 2012. That acquisition brought Google's flagship European cybersecurity center to Malaga, transforming the Spanish city into a tech hub. All because of a small malware program created by someone whose identity Quintero had never known. Moved by nostalgia and gratitude, Quintero launched a search earlier this year. He asked Spanish media outlets to amplify his quest for tips. He dove back into the virus's code, looking for clues his 18-year-old self might have missed. And he eventually solved the mystery, sharing the bittersweet resolution in a LinkedIn post that went viral. The story begins in 1992, when a young Quintero was prompted by a teacher to create an antivirus for the 2610-byte program that had spread across the computers of Malaga's Polytechnic School. 'That...
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