http://mashable.com/2014/11/25/regin-spy-malware-nsa-gchq/ it appears both symantec and kaspersky (and maybe others) knew about reign for a while now but stayed quiet as to not "interfere"
Great. Av companies keeping quiet. I wonder how they would explain infections to their customers if any of them was attacked.
Symantec uncovered Reign after investigating it during several months. That's the true story, even if you like to tell a different one.
Their customers get infected with non-government malware in spite of "AV protection". It would just be another missed detection. The question of whether they're unwilling or unable to detect government malware is moot. The simple fact is that normal commercial malware regularly defeats AVs. Why would anyone expect better against government malware? IMO, AVs aren't worth the disk space that they consume.
Not if they admit to knew about it and decided to look away. If I were a customer, and got hit by this malware, while my AV didn't want to block it (although I'm paying them to protect me), I wouldn't be too happy.
If it ever did come down to a legal battle, I'd bet on the government giving them immunity, just like they did the telecoms. Besides, it's a safe bet that Symantec and Kaspersky aren't the only ones that knew and turned a blind eye. There a very clear lesson here. If your adversary is a 3-letter agency or a government, you can't trust corporations to defend you. Except for others who are of the same mind, you're on your own.
I can't find any information about their software detecting the samples that they've found. Even if they didn't fully research malware, did they block samples and pieces they already knew about?
Is Government Malware unstoppable? http://blog.avira.com/government-malware/ What Anti-Virus [Paid/free] do not collect all your data/information? https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thre...not-collect-all-your-data-information.367975/ AV-Comparatives - Data transmission in Internet security products https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thre...mission-in-internet-security-products.363276/
A year ago: Antivirus bods grilled: Do YOU turn a blind eye to government spyware? | Wilders Security Forums
Quite the game with words: This is what they call the "least untrue statement". Just because the product is designed to detect it doesn't mean that they'll add the detection, at least not for the common user. Years later they get around to adding detections for it, after it's done its job. So much for cloud AVs and rapid updating.