ART meets cybersecurity in Beauty in Destruction, a Dark Reading feature about Finland’s WithSecure Museum of Malware Art. A standout piece is a giant, pink heart hanging in the lobby, crafted from 728 computer mice sourced from around the world, created by Hugo Lankinen and Kasper Hildén to reference the ILOVEYOU virus of the early 2000s.
The exhibit, launched in late 2024, positions cybersecurity through immersive art that explores the fragile intersection of technology, trust and human emotion, according to WithSecure’s Chief Research Officer Mikko Hyppönen. The museum’s collection includes W/Threatscape, an interactive installation by Iikko Kuusela in Helsinki that lets visitors capture malware data and generate images with AI, blending gesture recognition and diffusion models.
The piece sits alongside the Virus Archive, a time capsule tracing malware from 1987 to more modern threats, and a broader ecosystem of cyber-art like The Persistence of Chaos, which sold for $1.2 million in 2019. Andrada Fiscutean, the author, notes the project’s aim to turn unseen cyber threats into tangible art and to illuminate past and future challenges in cybersecurity.