Is Kaspersky Compromised?

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Germany warns against using Kaspersky software citing 'considerable' cyber risk after Russia's invasion

TechCrunch|20 minutes ago
The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warned organizations against using Kaspersky antivirus software over fears it could be exploited for cyber-espionage or launching cyberattacks amid Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.





Thoughts?

 

[UsandThem]

It's the exact same concerns that have been going on for years and years between the U.S. and software companies like Kaspersky.

There's no proof, but there should be some concern.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-t...-a-cyber-combatant-in-the-russia-ukraine-war/

Kaspersky has long been fighting allegations of being cozy with the Russian government but there is a case for why the connection is under scrutiny. If Russia wanted to attack the west, it's got a ready-made channel to do so: the anti-malware software designed to defend against just that risk.

Keep in mind that Russian developers have built a lot of the code we incorporate into our projects. Normally, that wouldn't cause any more worry than working with any other developer. But if Russia suddenly takes an adversarial position with NATO allies, the Russian coders we've been working with may suddenly turn into enemy combatants.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You also have to consider the potential blow-back from enforcing those prohibitions too strongly. How much software is produced by the USA? Most of it, I'm pretty sure. There's no way to know, apart from open-source software that you can compile yourself, that it hasn't already been compromised by one of our TLAs.

Remember "_nsakey" in the NT binaries that were left with the debug symbols enabled, and that symbol wasn't stripped?

IOW, being more "safe than sorry", may spur development of overseas software even moreso, and cause competitive issues down the road.

That being said, Every Last One of those cheap Chinese-made Android cell-phones are bugged / backdoored. Every. Last. One. So are low-cost USB NICs and other consumer network devices that plug in behind the NAT firewall.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Well, how 'bout that?

U.S. FCC adds Russia's Kaspersky, China telecom firms to national security threat list

Reuters on MSN.com|6 hours ago
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday added Russia's AO Kaspersky Lab, China Telecom (Americas) Corp and China Mobile International USA to its list of communications equipment and service providers deemed threats ...

 

[C1]

I doubt Kaspersky is any worse than most other anti-malware packages.

It is known that MS products (paricularly Win 10) spy on people and there are so many complaints about Google that I wouldnt know where to begin.

Also, why in the world does my i5 cpu ramp up to 100% & stay there almost immediately when accessing yahoo.finance ? After leaving that website after just a few minutes, my computer is so hot that it takes at least 5 good minutes to even start to settle back. (The only website I notice that does this, at least to such a degree.)

Im guessing that the site is attempting to be used for crypto mining and who knows what trojans/malware was attempted to be installed as a result.

 

[Atari2600]

That being said, Every Last One of those cheap Chinese-made Android cell-phones are bugged / backdoored. Every. Last. One.

Any rationale (and proof)?

Why would china bother to give a sh!t about what some no mark who buys a $50 phone thinks?

Its the folks with the $500 phones that might know something useful.

 

[Auroraa]

Any rationale (and proof)?

Why would china bother to give a sh!t about what some no mark who buys a $50 phone thinks?

Its the folks with the $500 phones that might know something useful.

Link:

Chinese-Made Smartphones Are Secretly Stealing Money From People Around The World

Preinstalled malware on low-cost Chinese phones has stolen data and money from some of the world's poorest people.

www.buzzfeednews.com

This actually well known by some and has been established for some time now.

link:

Budget US Android smartphones found secretly sending personal data to China | TechCrunch

Commercial firmware pre-installed on some Android smartphone models sold in the US has been found to be secretly sending highly sensitive user data to a third party company based in China, according to an analysis by security firm Kryptowire.

techcrunch.com

They collect as much as they can on as many people as they can which can then be referred back to if those people ever become a person of interest. Snowden revealed that the NSA does similarly as well, but that usually means issues with parallel reconstruction of investigations whereas with China they can use private information to blackmail people into serving their party.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/china-harvests-masses-of-data-on-western-targets-documents-show/2021/12/31/3981ce9c-538e-11ec-8927-c396fa861a71_story.html

Your attitude of assuming that they would not bother with people buying certain priced phones is erroneous and naive.

as for Kaspersky, thing is, it still is the only antivirus software that finds malware hidden in pdfs for example or other random places. I'm talking about the Kaspersky virus removal tool that that just scans and is free, not the active scanning one that runs all the time in the background and gets updates etc.

If everyone wants to say that Kaspersky should be avoided then windows defender and malwarebytes need to get their act together and start detecting threats that they miss that Kaspersky finds.





No profanity allowed in the tech forums.
(got it, fixed it, sorry.)

esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[bononos]

Any rationale (and proof)?
Why would china bother to give a sh!t about what some no mark who buys a $50 phone thinks?

Its the folks with the $500 phones that might know something useful.

The problem with cheap Chinese phones is the baked in spyware/adware and security holes. Adups was a big scandal because it even sent browsing sms contents to Chinese servers to be sold to data miners/scammers.
Huawei/Honor created a big security hole to install GMS after the trade ban, Xiaomi has had a string of privacy related issues lately.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Commerce says Nyet!!

US bans Russian cybersecurity software amid threat of influence operation​

ABC|3 hours ago
The Biden administration is issuing a total ban on the use of a Russian-backed cybersecurity software in the United States due to the Russian government's alleged influence operations over the software, the U.S. Commerce Department announced on Thursday.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky denies it's a hazard after the U.S. bans its software​

June 21, 2024 • The Moscow-based company said in a statement that the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision would not affect its ability to sell and promote its cyber security products and training in the U.S.




I wonder what they'll end up trying.

 

[mindless1]

Also, why in the world does my i5 cpu ramp up to 100% & stay there almost immediately when accessing yahoo.finance ?

Probably the scripts for, and playing the videos. Try disabling scripting for brightcove... (and doing without the videos, of course). Maybe there's more ads hogging CPU too, don't know as my browser has a lot of that disabled globally so didn't notice. Consider an ad-blocker along with a script blocker. Basically, most systematic is disable all scripts on the site, then enable them one by one until you get the content you need and nothing more. You'll absolutely need yahoo.com and yimg.com then go from there.

 

[mindless1]

Any rationale (and proof)?

Why would china bother to give a sh!t about what some no mark who buys a $50 phone thinks?

Its the folks with the $500 phones that might know something useful.

People with $500 phones, may also have cheap burners that they use for their less above-board activities. Pay cash, get it at walmart wearing your mask because covid, so the camera can't be used to make an ID later. However that doesn't mean you have to settle for a phone with dubious Chinese meddling, around $50 to $70 can get you a basic motorola or samsung, good enough to just do typical burner phone things.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Oh well .

​

U.S. News // 13 minutes ago
Kaspersky announces it will close U.S. offices after Commerce Department ban
July 16 (UPI) -- Less than a month after a product ban by the Commerce Department, the Moscow-based software company Kaspersky Lab announced on Monday it was winding down operations in the United States.​

 

[mindless1]

^ Sad to see this happen and to have less competition in the market, but frankly I haven't ran 3rd party AV for years, just pull a drive and get some scanner going on it if someone brings me a system that's compromised. I do appreciate that a gov or corp environment may want a more preemptive strategy.