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Is this retaliation for that time they detected unreleased NSA spyware? Has there ever been shown to be a security breach related, or is this just Russia bad? g

Is this retaliation for that time they detected unreleased NSA spyware? Has there ever been shown to be a security breach related, or is this just Russia bad? genuinely curious.

bdcravens 2y ago
One could say it's similar to the reasons for banning TikTok (concerns about state control of software), but in general, it's an expanding of existing trade sanctions against Russia.
- fred_is_fred 2y ago
  Tik-Tok and an Anti-virus program have pretty different privilege levels I would think. And generally one doesn't install Tik-Tok on servers in the data center, but I guess I could be surprised.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Yeah, TikTok is worse -- it can potentially enable exploits at layer 8!
    - banish-m4 2y ago
      Facebook facilitated a genocide. Did TT?
      - kube-system 2y ago
        That’s a good example of the influence possible. But remember, the US governments job is to protect the US, not Myanmar. And Facebook is within the legal jurisdiction of US officials.
golergka 2y ago
Kaspersky has been in FSB's pocket since forever. Banning hostile foreign intelligence from providing security services to your country is one of the very rare pieces of regulation even a staunch minarchist would support.
- ahofmann 2y ago
  Following this argument, the whole world needs to stop using software from the USA (and china, and Russia and ...).
  - tptacek 2y ago
    OK. They can do that.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    North Korea makes their own operating system for this reason.
  - jowea 2y ago
    The whole world is not hostile to the USA to the same level as USA/Russia, although if they're concerned about espionage yes they may need to. I'm actually a bit surprised the Snowden leaks didn't lead to a bigger push for FOSS in government, but I guess there's a cost/benefit analysis and fully keeping yourself out of reach of the US tech industry is probably too hard to be worth in general.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Not the whole world, just competing powers. And if you've been watching what China and Russia have been doing domestically to prop up their own tech sectors, that's exactly what they are doing.
alfalfasprout 2y ago
Antivirus software typically requires some level of privileged access. Given Kaspersky's deep collaboration with the Kremlin it's a serious attack vector.
- lionkor 2y ago
  Right but Chrome isnt?
  - jowea 2y ago
    Google is an American company, so how is that an attack vector the US government should be concerned about?
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Correct. The US government is not going to compel Alphabet to use Chrome as an attack vector against the US. Therefore the US is not concerned about Chrome. This isn't a technology issue, it's a governance issue.
  - TiredOfLife 2y ago
    Chrome doesn't run in kernel space
axpvms 2y ago
Russia is bad though, they just bombed a children's cancer hospital yesterday.
- greenavocado 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - kspacewalk2 2y ago
    Each side of what? Are you attempting to draw equivalency between the actions of Ukraine and Russia?
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      The war is between the US (allies) and Russia. Ukraine is just a proxy country. Did the war start with the invasion of Ukraine or many years before when NATO decided it needed to expand?
      - jiggawatts 2y ago
        Sigh. Ukraine begged to join NATO because they saw this coming a mile off. They’re still begging. Asking to join the neighbourhood security watch is offensive only to burglars. PS: If your argument over NATO membership is a valid one, then why is Russia not equally upset about Sweden and Finland joining NATO? Why not invade those sovereign nations on their border as well to prevent their membership? Is it because they don't particularly care about NATO unless it gets in the way of a planned invasion? Could that be it?
        senderista 2y ago
        What if Panama invited China to establish a giant military base on its territory, given that they were unlawfully invaded and occupied by the US just a few decades ago and presumably have an interest in preventing it from happening again? Do you think the US govt would be cool with that? Why not? Doesn't Panama have a right to choose their own allies, and also discourage a future invasion from the US? Why would the US object to this at all unless they were planning a future unlawful invasion? I'll close with a quote from former CIA director Bill Burns, who tried to talk the Bush administration out of pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia (this is from 2008): "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. At this stage, a MAP [Membership Action Plan] offer would be seen not as a technical step along a long road toward membership, but as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze…. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine."
gregw2 2y ago
The clearest most specific summary explanation I have seen is: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/kaspersky-reportedly-modified-its-av-to-help-russia-steal-nsa-secrets/?itm_source=parsely-api https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/kaspe... Note the Israeli findings and the months of experiments by US intel agencies after the fact and the conclusions they drew. The initial counterargument from Kaspersky (which seems to address some but not other concerns raised in the above link) apparently was something like the following: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/kaspersky-yes-we-obtained-nsa-secrets-no-we-didnt-help-steal-them/?itm_source=parsely-api https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/kaspe... Both the above are from 2017 in the months after the issues about Kaspersky concerns first came to light. This triggered the ban of Kaspersky from US government computers back then. Not sure what info may or may not have come to light since then but most people are not even aware of the above. The official 2024 USG reasons which impact are outlined in four bullets in the press release here: https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-department-prohibits-russian-kaspersky-software-us-customers https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-department-prohib... which in turn points to an ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) public-facing PDF/slide of the reasons: https://www.dni.gov/files/CTIIC/documents/products/Kaspersky_Lab_Products_Expose_US_Users_Data_to_Russian_Intelligence_Collection-June2024.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/CTIIC/documents/products/Kaspersky... and the US Commerce department's findings at https://oicts.bis.gov/pdfs/AppendixA.pdf https://oicts.bis.gov/pdfs/AppendixA.pdf (mostly blacked out but you get a sense of the back-n-forth reasoning justifying what steps short of a ban could be taken at least a little bit) and the Commerce Department Kaspersky FAQ at https://oicts.bis.gov/kaspersky/faq/ https://oicts.bis.gov/kaspersky/faq/ I have no first/secondhand knowledge of any of this stuff but this is what my curiosity turned up when I went poking around. Having observed corporate US security practices, my perception is that a lot of protection involves scanning things using very low-level OS and/or network techniques. Remember that phrase "who guards the guardians? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%... ) The Kaspersky ban by the US Commerce department appears to be essentially a concession that "who scans the scanners?" is not something the US can particularly do for products with the type of low-level access provided to AV/malware products, particularly products from entities with a concrete history of specific adverse (2014-2017) behavior from a particularly skilled hostile country (in this case Russia).
tptacek 2y ago
Forget the ongoing military conflict, and Russia is a hostile US IC rival. We did much the same thing with Huawei, for reasons much more complex than "China bad".
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
  Huawei was selling sanctioned hardware to Iran, and hiding it.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    That's not why they were banned in Europe!

Is this retaliation for that time they detected unreleased NSA spyware? Has there ever been shown to be a security breach related, or is this just Russia bad? genuinely curious.

bdcravens 2y ago

One could say it's similar to the reasons for banning TikTok (concerns about state control of software), but in general, it's an expanding of existing trade sanctions against Russia.

fred_is_fred 2y ago
Tik-Tok and an Anti-virus program have pretty different privilege levels I would think. And generally one doesn't install Tik-Tok on servers in the data center, but I guess I could be surprised.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Yeah, TikTok is worse -- it can potentially enable exploits at layer 8!
  - banish-m4 2y ago
    Facebook facilitated a genocide. Did TT?
    - kube-system 2y ago
      That’s a good example of the influence possible. But remember, the US governments job is to protect the US, not Myanmar. And Facebook is within the legal jurisdiction of US officials.

golergka 2y ago

Kaspersky has been in FSB's pocket since forever. Banning hostile foreign intelligence from providing security services to your country is one of the very rare pieces of regulation even a staunch minarchist would support.

ahofmann 2y ago
Following this argument, the whole world needs to stop using software from the USA (and china, and Russia and ...).
- tptacek 2y ago
  OK. They can do that.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  North Korea makes their own operating system for this reason.
- jowea 2y ago
  The whole world is not hostile to the USA to the same level as USA/Russia, although if they're concerned about espionage yes they may need to. I'm actually a bit surprised the Snowden leaks didn't lead to a bigger push for FOSS in government, but I guess there's a cost/benefit analysis and fully keeping yourself out of reach of the US tech industry is probably too hard to be worth in general.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Not the whole world, just competing powers. And if you've been watching what China and Russia have been doing domestically to prop up their own tech sectors, that's exactly what they are doing.

alfalfasprout 2y ago

Antivirus software typically requires some level of privileged access. Given Kaspersky's deep collaboration with the Kremlin it's a serious attack vector.

lionkor 2y ago
Right but Chrome isnt?
- jowea 2y ago
  Google is an American company, so how is that an attack vector the US government should be concerned about?
- kube-system 2y ago
  Correct. The US government is not going to compel Alphabet to use Chrome as an attack vector against the US. Therefore the US is not concerned about Chrome. This isn't a technology issue, it's a governance issue.
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
  Chrome doesn't run in kernel space

axpvms 2y ago

Russia is bad though, they just bombed a children's cancer hospital yesterday.

greenavocado 2y ago
[flagged]
- kspacewalk2 2y ago
  Each side of what? Are you attempting to draw equivalency between the actions of Ukraine and Russia?
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    The war is between the US (allies) and Russia. Ukraine is just a proxy country. Did the war start with the invasion of Ukraine or many years before when NATO decided it needed to expand?
    - jiggawatts 2y ago
      Sigh. Ukraine begged to join NATO because they saw this coming a mile off. They’re still begging. Asking to join the neighbourhood security watch is offensive only to burglars. PS: If your argument over NATO membership is a valid one, then why is Russia not equally upset about Sweden and Finland joining NATO? Why not invade those sovereign nations on their border as well to prevent their membership? Is it because they don't particularly care about NATO unless it gets in the way of a planned invasion? Could that be it?
      - senderista 2y ago
        What if Panama invited China to establish a giant military base on its territory, given that they were unlawfully invaded and occupied by the US just a few decades ago and presumably have an interest in preventing it from happening again? Do you think the US govt would be cool with that? Why not? Doesn't Panama have a right to choose their own allies, and also discourage a future invasion from the US? Why would the US object to this at all unless they were planning a future unlawful invasion? I'll close with a quote from former CIA director Bill Burns, who tried to talk the Bush administration out of pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia (this is from 2008): "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. At this stage, a MAP [Membership Action Plan] offer would be seen not as a technical step along a long road toward membership, but as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze…. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine."

gregw2 2y ago

The clearest most specific summary explanation I have seen is: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/kaspersky-reportedly-modified-its-av-to-help-russia-steal-nsa-secrets/?itm_source=parsely-api https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/kaspe... Note the Israeli findings and the months of experiments by US intel agencies after the fact and the conclusions they drew. The initial counterargument from Kaspersky (which seems to address some but not other concerns raised in the above link) apparently was something like the following: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/kaspersky-yes-we-obtained-nsa-secrets-no-we-didnt-help-steal-them/?itm_source=parsely-api https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/kaspe... Both the above are from 2017 in the months after the issues about Kaspersky concerns first came to light. This triggered the ban of Kaspersky from US government computers back then. Not sure what info may or may not have come to light since then but most people are not even aware of the above. The official 2024 USG reasons which impact are outlined in four bullets in the press release here: https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-department-prohibits-russian-kaspersky-software-us-customers https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-department-prohib... which in turn points to an ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) public-facing PDF/slide of the reasons: https://www.dni.gov/files/CTIIC/documents/products/Kaspersky_Lab_Products_Expose_US_Users_Data_to_Russian_Intelligence_Collection-June2024.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/CTIIC/documents/products/Kaspersky... and the US Commerce department's findings at https://oicts.bis.gov/pdfs/AppendixA.pdf https://oicts.bis.gov/pdfs/AppendixA.pdf (mostly blacked out but you get a sense of the back-n-forth reasoning justifying what steps short of a ban could be taken at least a little bit) and the Commerce Department Kaspersky FAQ at https://oicts.bis.gov/kaspersky/faq/ https://oicts.bis.gov/kaspersky/faq/ I have no first/secondhand knowledge of any of this stuff but this is what my curiosity turned up when I went poking around. Having observed corporate US security practices, my perception is that a lot of protection involves scanning things using very low-level OS and/or network techniques. Remember that phrase "who guards the guardians? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%... ) The Kaspersky ban by the US Commerce department appears to be essentially a concession that "who scans the scanners?" is not something the US can particularly do for products with the type of low-level access provided to AV/malware products, particularly products from entities with a concrete history of specific adverse (2014-2017) behavior from a particularly skilled hostile country (in this case Russia).

tptacek 2y ago

Forget the ongoing military conflict, and Russia is a hostile US IC rival. We did much the same thing with Huawei, for reasons much more complex than "China bad".

TiredOfLife 2y ago
Huawei was selling sanctioned hardware to Iran, and hiding it.
- tptacek 2y ago
  That's not why they were banned in Europe!