After 33 years, Bernardo Quintero decides it’s time to find the man who changed his life – the anonymous programmer who created the computer virus that infected his university decades ago.

Viruses, called The virus will spreadwas mostly harmless. But the challenge of defeating it sparked Quintero’s passion for cybersecurity, ultimately leading to his discovery. VirusTotalwas acquired by Google in 2012. The acquisition brought Google’s flagship European cybersecurity center to Malaga, turning the Spanish city into a tech hub.

All because of a small malware program developed by someone whose identity Quintero never knew. Moved by nostalgia and gratitude, Quintero began a search earlier this year. He asked Spanish media outlets to step up their search for clues. He dove back into the virus code, looking for clues to his 18-year-old self. And he finally solved the mystery, sharing a BitVisit resolution in one Linked post It 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 to the computers of the Polytechnic School of Málaga. “This challenge in my first year at university sparked a deep interest in computer viruses and security, and my path may have been very different without it,” Quintero told TechCrunch.

Quintero’s quest was aided by his programmer instincts. Earlier this year, he Stepped down From your team manager role to “back in the cave, go to the basement of Google.” He did not leave the company. Instead, he went back Tinkering and experimenting Without administrative duties.

This tinkering mentality led him to re-examine VirusMelga and look for details. At first, he found fragments of a signature, but thanks to another security expert, he discovered a later variant of the virus with much clearer clues: “Kekisuyo.” “Cake Soy You” translates to “I’m Cake,” a common nickname for “Enrique.”

Around the same time, Quintero received a direct message from a man who is now the general digital transformation coordinator for the Spanish city of Córdoba and who claimed to have witnessed one of his polytechnic school classmates go viral. Many details were added, but one stood out in particular: The man knew that the virus’s hidden message – known in cybersecurity terms – as a payload – was a statement condemning the Basque terrorist group ETA, a fact that Quintero had never disclosed.

The tipster then gave Quintero a name – Antonio Asturga – but also shared the news that he had passed away.

It dislodges Quintero like a ton of bricks. Now, he will never get to ask Antonio about the “cake”. But he continues to follow the thread, and the plot twist comes from Antonio’s sister, who reveals that his first name was actually Antonio Enrique. To his family, he was cake.

Cancer took Antonio Enrique Astorga before Quintero could thank him in person, but the story doesn’t stop there. Quintero’s LinkedIn post sheds new light on the legacy of “an outstanding colleague who deserves to be recognized as a cybersecurity pioneer in Malaga.”

According to his friend, Astorga’s virus had no other purpose than to spread his anti-terrorist message and prove himself as a programmer. Mirroring Quintero’s path, Asturga’s interest in him took hold, and he became a computing teacher at a secondary school that named its IT classroom after him.

Astorga’s legacy lives on beyond these walls, too, and not just through its students. One of his sons, Sergio, is a recent software engineering graduate with interests in cybersecurity and quantum computing. “To be able to close that circle now, and to see new generations on it, is deeply meaningful to me,” Quintero said.

For Quintero, whose paths will cross once again, Sergio is “very representative of the talent being made in Málaga today.” This, in turn, is the result of the virus that eventually forms its root Google became a safety engineering center For centuries.GSEC) and a collaborative partnership with the University of Malaga has made the city a true hub of cybersecurity talent.