Martin Smolar

Martin Smolár is a Malware Researcher at digital security firm ESET, doing malware analysis with a special focus on UEFI bootkits and firmware implants. Besides malware, he is especially interested in UEFI security and reverse engineering UEFI firmware secrets. His research points out the problems UEFI systems face, and he actively works to make them safer by uncovering UEFI vulnerabilities and reporting them to the affected parties. To date, Martin has discovered a number of UEFI vulnerabilities, many allowing easy bypass of the essential UEFI security mechanism – UEFI Secure Boot. This research led to Martin receiving the Péter Szőr Award for Technical Security Research at the Virus Bulletin 2023 conference, and to him speaking at conferences such as RSAC, CARO Workshop and AVAR.