Mark Sunner – Chief Security Analyst

Mark Sunner joined MessageLabs in 1999 as head of product development and innovation. The services Mark and his team initially created went on to establish several ground breaking milestones within the Anti-virus and Anti-spam arenas. In 2003 Mark relocated to New York for a year to help establish MessageLabs North American business and became the company’s primary spokesperson.

Mark has more than 15 years of public speaking experience and is renowned as a keynote speaker within the industry. He has spoken on a wide variety of security related topics to more than 10,000 executives in the UK and has addressed audiences around the world on a range of security issues and product innovation. Mark is also a key media figure, having conducted numerous interviews with print media around the world and broadcast media appearances with The BBC, CNN, CNBC, Channel 4, Sky Television and others on a wide range of security and messaging usage topics.



Alex Shipp – Senior Anti-Virus Technologist and Imagineer

As Senior Anti-Virus Technologist, Alex Shipp is the driving technical force behind the MessageLabs service. He was the lead architect of MessageLabs carrier class email system and is now the architect and lead programmer of Skeptic™, MessageLabs’ heuristic virus scanner. Alex is a pioneer in using massive computing power to detect malware, and holds several patents in this area. For the last seven years, his products have had the best track record in the world in preventing customers from being affected by malware in SMTP email. He is now expanding research into protection from malware arriving by HTTP and IM. He has been an integral part of the company since joining in 1999.

Alex has 15 years of public speaking experience and has spoken on viruses, heuristic detection and Internet Level scanning at events around the world including the annual Virus Bulletin conference, AVAR (Anti-Virus Asia Researchers), RSA and the Dutch Anti-Virus society. Alex is also MessageLabs key media spokesperson on all virus-related issues and has appeared on a host of national TV and radio programs.



Matt Sergeant – Senior Anti-Spam Technologist

Matt Sergeant is widely recognized as a leading authority on all things spam related. Since joining the team in 2001, Matt has played an instrumental role in building, developing and increasing the agility and speed of MessageLabs heuristic Anti-Spam service, which actively monitors, watches and waits for new attacks from known and unknown sources. Matt’s exceptional knowledge on the spammer’s community and characteristics of the core offenders is fundamental in keeping MessageLabs customers protected from attacks, aided also by Matt’s constant research into new techniques for targeting and technologies to protect spam attacks.

With more than ten years IT experience, five years within the security arena, Matt is a highly experienced technical speaker, media spokesperson and an active member of MAAWG (Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group).



Paul Fletcher – Chief Software Architect

Paul Fletcher is Chief Software Architect and Chairman of the Architecture Review Board at MessageLabs, with overall responsibility for the technical architecture, standardization and design of the company’s software infrastructure. As MessageLabs leading architect, working in unison with the product-specific architects, Paul has developed the blueprint for the MessageLabs portfolio of services, which ensures that all the products interlink, and interact in complete unison while providing MessageLabs customers with the securest habitat possible.

With more than 20 years in the IT industry, Paul has consistently been a leading light in technology developments, exemplified by his involvement in designing the MessageLabs services in 1999, and through his previous roles at HP and Panasonic. Whether it is time-sensitive troubleshooting activities or defining the architecture for MessageLabs latest project, such as the Web Security Services v.2, Paul’s ingenuity keeps MessageLabs at the forefront of the security market.



Paul Wood – Senior Analyst

Paul Wood is the Senior Analyst at MessageLabs. Since joining the company in 2002, Paul has acted as the intrinsic link between MessageLabs technical teams and external audiences through his articulation of threat data analysis via monthly MessageLabs Intelligence reports, media interviews and public speaking events. Through Paul’s continuous communication with the anti-virus, anti-spam, web and IM teams, Paul is on the cutting edge of business security intelligence and at the forefront of the latest threats and attacks.

Having spent more than 18 years in the IT industry, Paul is a respected and well-known individual through his involvement with UK’s International Anti-Spam Group and The London Action Group (International Network of Anti-Spam Authorities).



Maksym Schipka – Senior Architect

Maksym Schipka is the Senior Architect at MessageLabs. Since joining in 2003, Maksym has been responsible for ever-increasing the superiority of MessageLabs anti-virus heuristics used for tracking and stopping existing threats, while also researching new and future exploits and technologies to protect against them. Maksym has created and is now heading a new dedicated Research & Response team, part of a large R&D department, where the anti-virus and anti-spam research and response is taken to new heights.

With a zest for problem solving, Maksym thrives on the emergence of unidentified threats to unravel, and the design and development of new tools which enables MessageLabs to protect its customers better than any other vendor. Maksym's most recent achievements include the LinkFollowing feature within MessageLabs Email Anti-Virus 5.1 service, which protects businesses against positively-identified viral URL links embedded within email messages, zero-day detection of the most prolific exploits like WMF and GIF exploits, the evolution of MessageLabs heuristic virus scanner, Skeptic, for Web Security Services v.2, as well as the design of the next generation heuristic scanners for MessageLabs. Maksym has a number of patents pending.

Maksym is a regular presenter at Virus Bulletin, AVAR, and other commercial and academic conferences. He has four years of public speaking experience and has been quoted in leading technology and media publications and broadcast outlets, including The Guardian, Daily Mail, BBC News, PC World and others.