5 ms·

Biden puts a bullet in Kaspersky: Sales, updates to be banned in America

43 points by justinclift 2y ago

mv4 2y ago
Serious question: do people still use antivirus software?
- JSDevOps 2y ago
  Non technical project managers love it.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Many do but not by choice
- verdverm 2y ago
  we run clamav on our linux boxes, it has caught things
- Yodel0914 2y ago
  Kaspersky is more than AV - we use their Safe Kids app to gain some control over our kids' devices.
- ammo1662 2y ago
  Definitely. As a developer, I was totally fucked by one of our customers' antivirus software. That AV software has very poor performance. It significantly slows down the DLL/file loading. And the firewall component just simply add delay to all HTTP requests. The “Exclusion” function is also useless as expected. It cost me a lot of meaningless time to investigate the performance issue reported by customers. And you cannot even imagine that as an AV software, their self-protection component is running as a simple Windows service. You can easily disable that by setting a wrong user account to that service. After restart, you can do whatever you want. Honestly, if I am the one who writes virus. I would give credit to the company who make such poor antivirus software and sell to thousands of customers. They do make life easier.
- gus_massa 2y ago
  A lot of times, the antivirus is part of the crapware that comes with a new windows computer. After a month of free tryal, it start shiwing scarry reminders. And as John reminds us, it may be difficult to uninstall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg
throwawaysleep 2y ago
All Russian software should have been banned back in 2014.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- JSDevOps 2y ago
  Why?
  - verdverm 2y ago
    because the 1980s didn't actually call to get their foreign policy back?
  - ddcx532 2y ago
    For the same reason that the Russians ban our NGOs. They're not neutral groups independent of their sovereign. To say otherwise is naive.
- newsclues 2y ago
  Telegram is a big source of news within Russia for Osint, banning access would be detrimental to journalism
  - timcobb 2y ago
    TG isn't Russian, I believe they are based in Dubai
    - romwell 2y ago
      It doesn't matter where the shell company is formally registered. The founder and CTO is Durov, whose previous project, VKontakte (Facebook clone) has been effectively confiscated by Russian government. Telegram is a Russian project. People are hoping that because it's made by a "good" Russian who isn't in Russia anymore, and holds a grudge against Russian government, Telegram won't have Russian backdoors. I'd say, that is rather optimistic.
skilled 2y ago
Some other antivirus is about to make bank in the US. Can’t wait for all the special first-year offers.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  Norton/McAfee
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
peacechance 2y ago
[flagged]
- scblock 2y ago
  So trustworthy they are believed to have been used to exfiltrate classified data from the US to Russia. https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/15/2154250/very-high-level-of-confidence-russia-used-kaspersky-software-for-devastating-nsa-leaks https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/15/2154250/very-high-l...
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    that "news" was a joke then and is kinda lame today.
- wumeow 2y ago
  [flagged]
uyzstvqs 2y ago
[flagged]
- notaigenerated 2y ago
  Totally makes sense, since Kaspersky is not just an anti-virus company and it's not just "part-Russian" They're literally a contractor and consultant to russian military. https://informnapalm.org/en/alabugaleaks-part-2-kaspersky-lab-and-neural-networks-for-russian-military-drones/ https://informnapalm.org/en/alabugaleaks-part-2-kaspersky-la...
  - riehwvfbk 2y ago
    So, like Symantec?
    - TiredOfLife 2y ago
      Do you have sources of Symantec working for russian military?
      - riehwvfbk 2y ago
        You probably think intentionally missing the analogy is clever.
        TiredOfLife 2y ago
        It would be an analogy if US currently was in the middle of exterminating a nation.
- bruce511 2y ago
  Obviously this decision is political- it's expressly because of sanctions. You are raising a "what about" question here. "If you do this then what-about that?" Or perhaps "before you do this perhaps worry about that." But these issues are completely unrelated. One is political (and trivial to deal with) another is technical (and a vastly bigger, and more complicated topic). For starters if congress set out to "prevent spyware", I'd suggest they lack the skillset to even define "spyware" much less the technical expertise to effectively ban it in some way. I certainly would not expect them to somehow ban "spyware" whole at the same time leabing all "not spyware" unaffected.
richrichie 2y ago
[flagged]
rkagerer 2y ago
...and also ban the antivirus maker from distributing software updates and malware signatures to existing Stateside customers after September 29 Some percentage of customers won't bother to switch to a competing product, letting the stale signatures linger instead, and ironically that'll make them more vulnerable to hackers and state adversaries.
karaterobot 2y ago
My first thought was "what do they know about Kaspersky that makes them suddenly want to burn it to the ground?" This article talks about some possible reasons: https://www.wired.com/story/us-kaspersky-ban-evidence/ https://www.wired.com/story/us-kaspersky-ban-evidence/ > Stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have since cited anonymous sources accusing Kaspersky of siphoning American secrets, including the files of an NSA staffer, to its own servers, where the Russian government then accessed them. To be clear, the article doesn't consider this a smoking gun, and instead is demanding a more concrete statement of the government's reasons. But, personally, I'm completely fine with erring on the side of not trusting a security company operating in Russia with access to my computer. Let's say Kaspersky has the most honest and best intentions in the world, and would never voluntarily cooperate with Putin's government to spy on or harm foreign computers. Does anyone think their protests would matter at all, if push came to shove? This is like the TikTok argument, but with a more obvious attack vector if the software came under direct control of a hostile government.
- galaxyLogic 2y ago
  Right, it's not about whether Kaspersky has done or spread any malware so far, it's about what they could do if Russian government threatens to throw their managers out of 13th-floor window. It's a threat especially because AV-apps have full control of people's machines. And Russia is sanctioned by US in many other ways because Russia started a war against Ukraine. So why not sanction Russian software companies as well. Makes sense if you think starting wars should be discouraged.
skissane 2y ago
We may be moving towards a situation in which the West and the China/Russia block end up being completely disjoint as far as proprietary software goes (whether cloud or on-premise), due to each banning the proprietary software of the other, although still sharing open source in common. The long-term consequences could be interesting.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  It's an opportunity to move to open source software. As an example, if uBlock Origin can be open and work for the world, why can't something else?
- nradov 2y ago
  That's a good insight. The likely consequence will be that security services on both sides increasingly target open source projects as a zone of conflict, both by trying to inject security vulnerabilities that they can exploit when used by the other side and by trying to detect vulnerabilities prior to use on their side. The maintainers and code committers on major open source projects will be targeted for recruitment as intelligence assets.
mediumsmart 2y ago
[flagged]
2Gkashmiri 2y ago
a few days ago when kremlin asked mozilla to remove anti-circumvention tools from mozilla store, the internet exploded with "sold outs" and "succumbed to pressure of the oppressive government" but now here we are. isn't this hypocrisy? on your part, i mean the HN crowd
e253 2y ago
[flagged]
openplatypus 2y ago
Now let's investigate JetBrains. Untill recently they had huge presence in St Petersburg and relocated their Russian staff after war broke out. IMO it is supply chain risk which ought to be carefully audited.
errantwalker 2y ago
"the program searched for terms as broad as 'TOP SECRET'" It is a good line for the script in a second part of the movie with the same name. As a excuse to justify the banning of an Antivirus... weak as the Intelligence of some Chief Commander in the New World. Not a Big-EEndian. Swift...

43 points by justinclift 2y ago

mv4 2y ago

Serious question: do people still use antivirus software?

JSDevOps 2y ago
Non technical project managers love it.
throwaway290 2y ago
Many do but not by choice
verdverm 2y ago
we run clamav on our linux boxes, it has caught things
Yodel0914 2y ago
Kaspersky is more than AV - we use their Safe Kids app to gain some control over our kids' devices.
ammo1662 2y ago
Definitely. As a developer, I was totally fucked by one of our customers' antivirus software. That AV software has very poor performance. It significantly slows down the DLL/file loading. And the firewall component just simply add delay to all HTTP requests. The “Exclusion” function is also useless as expected. It cost me a lot of meaningless time to investigate the performance issue reported by customers. And you cannot even imagine that as an AV software, their self-protection component is running as a simple Windows service. You can easily disable that by setting a wrong user account to that service. After restart, you can do whatever you want. Honestly, if I am the one who writes virus. I would give credit to the company who make such poor antivirus software and sell to thousands of customers. They do make life easier.
gus_massa 2y ago
A lot of times, the antivirus is part of the crapware that comes with a new windows computer. After a month of free tryal, it start shiwing scarry reminders. And as John reminds us, it may be difficult to uninstall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg

throwawaysleep 2y ago

All Russian software should have been banned back in 2014.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
JSDevOps 2y ago
Why?
- verdverm 2y ago
  because the 1980s didn't actually call to get their foreign policy back?
- ddcx532 2y ago
  For the same reason that the Russians ban our NGOs. They're not neutral groups independent of their sovereign. To say otherwise is naive.
newsclues 2y ago
Telegram is a big source of news within Russia for Osint, banning access would be detrimental to journalism
- timcobb 2y ago
  TG isn't Russian, I believe they are based in Dubai
  - romwell 2y ago
    It doesn't matter where the shell company is formally registered. The founder and CTO is Durov, whose previous project, VKontakte (Facebook clone) has been effectively confiscated by Russian government. Telegram is a Russian project. People are hoping that because it's made by a "good" Russian who isn't in Russia anymore, and holds a grudge against Russian government, Telegram won't have Russian backdoors. I'd say, that is rather optimistic.

skilled 2y ago

Some other antivirus is about to make bank in the US. Can’t wait for all the special first-year offers.

philipwhiuk 2y ago
Norton/McAfee

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

peacechance 2y ago

[flagged]

scblock 2y ago
So trustworthy they are believed to have been used to exfiltrate classified data from the US to Russia. https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/15/2154250/very-high-level-of-confidence-russia-used-kaspersky-software-for-devastating-nsa-leaks https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/01/15/2154250/very-high-l...
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  that "news" was a joke then and is kinda lame today.
wumeow 2y ago
[flagged]

uyzstvqs 2y ago

[flagged]

notaigenerated 2y ago
Totally makes sense, since Kaspersky is not just an anti-virus company and it's not just "part-Russian" They're literally a contractor and consultant to russian military. https://informnapalm.org/en/alabugaleaks-part-2-kaspersky-lab-and-neural-networks-for-russian-military-drones/ https://informnapalm.org/en/alabugaleaks-part-2-kaspersky-la...
- riehwvfbk 2y ago
  So, like Symantec?
  - TiredOfLife 2y ago
    Do you have sources of Symantec working for russian military?
    - riehwvfbk 2y ago
      You probably think intentionally missing the analogy is clever.
      - TiredOfLife 2y ago
        It would be an analogy if US currently was in the middle of exterminating a nation.
bruce511 2y ago
Obviously this decision is political- it's expressly because of sanctions. You are raising a "what about" question here. "If you do this then what-about that?" Or perhaps "before you do this perhaps worry about that." But these issues are completely unrelated. One is political (and trivial to deal with) another is technical (and a vastly bigger, and more complicated topic). For starters if congress set out to "prevent spyware", I'd suggest they lack the skillset to even define "spyware" much less the technical expertise to effectively ban it in some way. I certainly would not expect them to somehow ban "spyware" whole at the same time leabing all "not spyware" unaffected.

richrichie 2y ago

[flagged]

rkagerer 2y ago

...and also ban the antivirus maker from distributing software updates and malware signatures to existing Stateside customers after September 29 Some percentage of customers won't bother to switch to a competing product, letting the stale signatures linger instead, and ironically that'll make them more vulnerable to hackers and state adversaries.

karaterobot 2y ago

My first thought was "what do they know about Kaspersky that makes them suddenly want to burn it to the ground?" This article talks about some possible reasons: https://www.wired.com/story/us-kaspersky-ban-evidence/ https://www.wired.com/story/us-kaspersky-ban-evidence/ > Stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have since cited anonymous sources accusing Kaspersky of siphoning American secrets, including the files of an NSA staffer, to its own servers, where the Russian government then accessed them. To be clear, the article doesn't consider this a smoking gun, and instead is demanding a more concrete statement of the government's reasons. But, personally, I'm completely fine with erring on the side of not trusting a security company operating in Russia with access to my computer. Let's say Kaspersky has the most honest and best intentions in the world, and would never voluntarily cooperate with Putin's government to spy on or harm foreign computers. Does anyone think their protests would matter at all, if push came to shove? This is like the TikTok argument, but with a more obvious attack vector if the software came under direct control of a hostile government.

galaxyLogic 2y ago
Right, it's not about whether Kaspersky has done or spread any malware so far, it's about what they could do if Russian government threatens to throw their managers out of 13th-floor window. It's a threat especially because AV-apps have full control of people's machines. And Russia is sanctioned by US in many other ways because Russia started a war against Ukraine. So why not sanction Russian software companies as well. Makes sense if you think starting wars should be discouraged.

skissane 2y ago

We may be moving towards a situation in which the West and the China/Russia block end up being completely disjoint as far as proprietary software goes (whether cloud or on-premise), due to each banning the proprietary software of the other, although still sharing open source in common. The long-term consequences could be interesting.

OutOfHere 2y ago
It's an opportunity to move to open source software. As an example, if uBlock Origin can be open and work for the world, why can't something else?
nradov 2y ago
That's a good insight. The likely consequence will be that security services on both sides increasingly target open source projects as a zone of conflict, both by trying to inject security vulnerabilities that they can exploit when used by the other side and by trying to detect vulnerabilities prior to use on their side. The maintainers and code committers on major open source projects will be targeted for recruitment as intelligence assets.

mediumsmart 2y ago

[flagged]

2Gkashmiri 2y ago

a few days ago when kremlin asked mozilla to remove anti-circumvention tools from mozilla store, the internet exploded with "sold outs" and "succumbed to pressure of the oppressive government" but now here we are. isn't this hypocrisy? on your part, i mean the HN crowd

e253 2y ago

[flagged]

openplatypus 2y ago

Now let's investigate JetBrains. Untill recently they had huge presence in St Petersburg and relocated their Russian staff after war broke out. IMO it is supply chain risk which ought to be carefully audited.

errantwalker 2y ago

"the program searched for terms as broad as 'TOP SECRET'" It is a good line for the script in a second part of the movie with the same name. As a excuse to justify the banning of an Antivirus... weak as the Intelligence of some Chief Commander in the New World. Not a Big-EEndian. Swift...