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When was Kasepersky ever considered a dirtbag? That company has written a lot of technically in-depth security reports over various threats for a long time. AF

by tomc1985 5y ago

When was Kasepersky ever considered a dirtbag? That company has written a lot of technically in-depth security reports over various threats for a long time. AFAIK it's a (relatively) honest business, though sadly the target of American russophobia

Maursault 5y ago
Unsure of reason for downvotes, but this was my observation as well, and my experience is that Kaspersky Labs scanning software successfully sanitizes its targets and does so without giving the uncanny feeling of wasting one's time. Putin and friends are moronic for bullying and harassing and mugging Ukraine. But if I were him, I would definitely declare apple pie a security threat in response.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  Yeah, it was my preferred AV for a while, til I switched to a local company
eunos 5y ago
I think there was an incident in which some NSA contractor had Kaspersky installed in their workstation and the heuristic caught up NSA tools https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/kaspersky-russia-nsa-contractor-leaked-us-hacking-tools-by-mistake-pirating-microsoft-office https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/kaspersky...
- toyg 5y ago
  They did the right thing - finding suspiciously malicious code is their job. Not their fault the user was an idiot, spooks PEBKAC is still PEBKAC.
  - dralley 5y ago
    Sure, but the allegation was that soon after Kasperky detected the NSA tools on his system he was hit with a very targeted cyberattack. IIRC that's where the allegations of Kasperky's involvement with the Russian government came in. And anecdotally there were a lot of MSPs in /r/sysadmin claiming that every single one of their Kasperky customers would be hit by ransomware while few if any of their other customers were.
  - flutas 5y ago
    > They did the right thing - finding suspiciously malicious code is their job. Not their fault the user was an idiot, spooks PEBKAC is still PEBKAC. Except for this part, which leaves a huge question of "do they share knowledge with the russian govt." > But the bigger unknown is whether and how Kaspersky’s acknowledged discovery and acquisition of NSA hacking tools resulted in Russian intelligence agencies discovering the NSA contractor, and targeting him for further, apparently successful, attacks.
kmeisthax 5y ago
The concern isn't Kaspersky being a dirtbag, it's Putin legally mandating they become a dirtbag. That's how nation states and wars work. In fact, there's a similar concern that the EU has with the US. The US's CLOUD Act forces American tech companies to comply with US legal subpoenas in foreign jurisdictions, which means that said tech companies cannot also comply with GDPR data export rules. Hence, it's illegal to include US services on EU websites[0] until and unless the US either agrees to pass GDPR into US law (so that exported EU data is still protected) or repeals the CLOUD Act (so that localized EU data is legally untouchable by the FBI or CIA). The idea that we can treat a company as wholly separate from it's host nation is more of a legal fiction than anything else. It's not, in and of itself, russophobia. If the person running Kaspersky was trying to, say, flee Russia; and people said he couldnt't be trusted, then that would be russophobia. [0] Note: It is still legal for EU citizens to use those US services directly. This only covers data export by EU companies to third-parties.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  Sorry, my reference to Russophobia was more at past light that has been shown on Kaspersky, before this year's invasion of Ukraine. I agree that it is entirely possible that Kaspersky could be weaponized now
flavius29663 5y ago
> American russophobia When you are entering a cold war with Russia, it's not Russophobia, it's common sense to not allow a potential state actor to have root access to millions of devices in your country. Also, Kaspersky was literally a former KGB > At the age of 16, Kaspersky entered a five-year program with The Technical Faculty of the KGB Higher School,[15] which prepared intelligence officers for the Russian military and KGB.[7][8] He graduated in 1987[15] with a degree in mathematical engineering and computer technology.[4][8] After graduating college, Kaspersky served the Soviet military intelligence service [6] as a software engineer.[2][10] He met his first wife Natalya Kaspersky at Severskoye, a KGB vacation resort, in 1987.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky#Early_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky#Early_life
guelo 5y ago
Was it America-phobia that made russia direct endless waves of cyber-attacks at us?

Maursault 5y ago

Unsure of reason for downvotes, but this was my observation as well, and my experience is that Kaspersky Labs scanning software successfully sanitizes its targets and does so without giving the uncanny feeling of wasting one's time. Putin and friends are moronic for bullying and harassing and mugging Ukraine. But if I were him, I would definitely declare apple pie a security threat in response.

tomc1985 5y ago
Yeah, it was my preferred AV for a while, til I switched to a local company

eunos 5y ago

I think there was an incident in which some NSA contractor had Kaspersky installed in their workstation and the heuristic caught up NSA tools https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/kaspersky-russia-nsa-contractor-leaked-us-hacking-tools-by-mistake-pirating-microsoft-office https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/kaspersky...

toyg 5y ago
They did the right thing - finding suspiciously malicious code is their job. Not their fault the user was an idiot, spooks PEBKAC is still PEBKAC.
- dralley 5y ago
  Sure, but the allegation was that soon after Kasperky detected the NSA tools on his system he was hit with a very targeted cyberattack. IIRC that's where the allegations of Kasperky's involvement with the Russian government came in. And anecdotally there were a lot of MSPs in /r/sysadmin claiming that every single one of their Kasperky customers would be hit by ransomware while few if any of their other customers were.
- flutas 5y ago
  > They did the right thing - finding suspiciously malicious code is their job. Not their fault the user was an idiot, spooks PEBKAC is still PEBKAC. Except for this part, which leaves a huge question of "do they share knowledge with the russian govt." > But the bigger unknown is whether and how Kaspersky’s acknowledged discovery and acquisition of NSA hacking tools resulted in Russian intelligence agencies discovering the NSA contractor, and targeting him for further, apparently successful, attacks.

kmeisthax 5y ago

The concern isn't Kaspersky being a dirtbag, it's Putin legally mandating they become a dirtbag. That's how nation states and wars work. In fact, there's a similar concern that the EU has with the US. The US's CLOUD Act forces American tech companies to comply with US legal subpoenas in foreign jurisdictions, which means that said tech companies cannot also comply with GDPR data export rules. Hence, it's illegal to include US services on EU websites[0] until and unless the US either agrees to pass GDPR into US law (so that exported EU data is still protected) or repeals the CLOUD Act (so that localized EU data is legally untouchable by the FBI or CIA). The idea that we can treat a company as wholly separate from it's host nation is more of a legal fiction than anything else. It's not, in and of itself, russophobia. If the person running Kaspersky was trying to, say, flee Russia; and people said he couldnt't be trusted, then that would be russophobia. [0] Note: It is still legal for EU citizens to use those US services directly. This only covers data export by EU companies to third-parties.

tomc1985 5y ago
Sorry, my reference to Russophobia was more at past light that has been shown on Kaspersky, before this year's invasion of Ukraine. I agree that it is entirely possible that Kaspersky could be weaponized now

flavius29663 5y ago

> American russophobia When you are entering a cold war with Russia, it's not Russophobia, it's common sense to not allow a potential state actor to have root access to millions of devices in your country. Also, Kaspersky was literally a former KGB > At the age of 16, Kaspersky entered a five-year program with The Technical Faculty of the KGB Higher School,[15] which prepared intelligence officers for the Russian military and KGB.[7][8] He graduated in 1987[15] with a degree in mathematical engineering and computer technology.[4][8] After graduating college, Kaspersky served the Soviet military intelligence service [6] as a software engineer.[2][10] He met his first wife Natalya Kaspersky at Severskoye, a KGB vacation resort, in 1987.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky#Early_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky#Early_life

guelo 5y ago

Was it America-phobia that made russia direct endless waves of cyber-attacks at us?