Ilfak Guilfanov (Russian: Ильфак Гильфанов, born 1966) is a Russian software developer, computer security researcher and blogger. He became well known when he issued a free hotfix for the Windows Metafile vulnerability on 31 December 2005.[1] His unofficial patch was favorably reviewed and widely publicized because no official patch was initially available from Microsoft.[2] Microsoft released an official patch on 5 January 2006.
Guilfanov was born in a small village in the Tatarstan Region of Russia in a Volga Tatar family. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. He lives in Liège, Belgium and works for Hex-Rays. He is the systems architect and main developer for IDA Pro, which is Hex-Rays' commercial version of the Interactive Disassembler Guilfanov created. A freeware version of this reverse engineering tool is also available.