Reuters: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by vlk, Aug 14, 2015.

  1. vlk

    vlk AV Expert

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  2. mnosteele

    mnosteele Registered Member

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    WOW! I will never touch Kaspersky again, used to be a reseller and it caused more problems than it prevented. They should be banned from testing sites, punished just like the cheaters in professional sports. No excuse for this type of behavior, bush league and classless.
    :thumbd::mad:
     
  3. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Interesting. Bad move by Kaspersky.
    If we would check other large IT companies, how many of them would have clean history?
     
  4. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    Erm, how do you "trick" competition into flagging files as malware? If any competitor has somehow fallen for that, they are a lousy security company. It's their job to verify what the files are, what they do and if they are malware or not, not Kaspersky's.
     
  5. Tarantula

    Tarantula Guest

    Wow! As if Reuters is something you can rely on. Facepalm.
     
  6. anon

    anon Registered Member

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    Shoot the messenger........ :rolleyes:
     
  7. Tarantula

    Tarantula Guest

    No, it's just that Reuters is US propaganda tool. I don't believe a word.
     
  8. JimmyJames321

    JimmyJames321 Registered Member

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    Well, to make the accusation a concrete case.
    1. those two former employees should identify themselves like Snowden did. and
    2. other than verbal accusations, hard evidence is needed.

    as of now, we should treat it as rumor.
     
  9. Nightwalker

    Nightwalker Registered Member

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    In the past years I noticed that many antivirus signatures are just copycats from Kaspersky and the use of Virustotal to copy is a fact.
    I think we had a discussion about this here on Wilders (2008-2009 maybe?).

    Kaspersky are at fault if it is true, but the other antivirus firms are even worse, they really have a bad R&D to follow other companies so blind, they shouldn't be trust at all.

    I totally agree with RejZoR
     
  10. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    A reason why Kaspersky "might" have done this is exactly what you said. I know quite some companies that were plain lazy and just added detections if Kaspersky detected it (or other high profile product). I know companies share intelligence and samples, but this is just lazy work. Basically they piggy back on the hard work of Kaspersky analysis systems and work of their analysist. Even if Kaspersky did this, it's still entirely the fault of companies that has potentially fallen for this "trick". If you're lazy in the beginning, you're also lazy when you add fakes. Meaning it's entirely YOUR fault. Not sure why people jumped to conclusion that Kaspersky is the bad guy here. If you ask me, Kaspersky did nothing wrong and I see no reason to boycott them or talk bad abou them because of it.
     
  11. FleischmannTV

    FleischmannTV Registered Member

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    I fully agree with RejZor.
     
  12. Eggnog

    Eggnog Registered Member

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    Remember, all this is "according to two former employees". So take that for what it's worth and don't jump to conclusions.
     
  13. itman

    itman Registered Member

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    In one technique, Kaspersky's engineers would take an important piece of software commonly found in PCs and inject bad code into it so that the file looked like it was infected, the ex-employees said. They would send the doctored file anonymously to VirusTotal.

    Would that not break the hash of the file? And VT never detected that?
     
  14. m0unds

    m0unds Guest

    i don't think virustotal uses the hash for anything other than cross-referencing previous detection reports of that same file, either by search or when someone else submits a previously scanned file for scanning.
     
  15. wshrugged

    wshrugged Registered Member

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    I don't imagine an end user felt warm and fuzzy when a detection/quarantine happened on their system.

    IF the story is true, Kaspersky should've made their findings public, post trap. Messing with end user's lives/time without a LOUDLY stated purpose isn't forgivable. Immediately exposing thieves, is.


    [disclosure -- I've used one of the products mentioned in the article but wasn't affected. I don't/won't use Kaspersky for other reasons but any company who did what is alleged (without loud publicity) wouldn't have me for a customer - ever.]
     
  16. Miyagi

    Miyagi Registered Member

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    Wasn't there something similar with Malwarebytes and IOBit?
     
  17. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    I do also. Not stopping me from using it.
     
  18. haakon

    haakon Guest

  19. Hiltihome

    Hiltihome Registered Member

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  20. phalanaxus

    phalanaxus Registered Member

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    It's really interesting how quickly people will believe something and jump to conclusions. The article linked states the claim comes from anonymous ex-Kaspersky workers and says reuters have no solid evidence. People shouldn't forget that spewing bull$ is so easy.
     
  21. imdb

    imdb Registered Member

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    i second that
     
  22. Iangh

    Iangh Registered Member

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    What about the people that had the system stuffed, and the ramifications thereof. Was that OK?
     
  23. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. As AV companies face further irrelevancy they will push to try and maintain profits.
     
  24. malexous

    malexous Registered Member

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    Two disgruntled ex-employees would never make something up about their former employer and rivals would never pretend to be ex-employees of a company. Rivals would definitely fake malware, though.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2015
  25. Nevis

    Nevis Registered Member

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    Wow, I thought I would be the one defending Kaspersky here but looks like it already gathered quite a few supporters.
     
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