Reuters: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals

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

  1. Nevis

    Nevis Registered Member

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    Thanks. that was clear and useful info.
     
  2. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Thnx Fabian Wosar for detailed explanation :thumb:
     
  3. GakunGak

    GakunGak Registered Member

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    I wonder sometimes, how much of user personal data is "out there".....
    And what happens when someone takes "a peek under a hood"....
    http://www.businessinsider.com/snow...aspersky-and-other-antivirus-companies-2015-6
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/22/nsa-gchq-targeted-kaspersky/
    Kaspersky is [should!] a smart player in the antivirus market. Holding 400+ million customers worldwide, having advanced threat monitoring/sensors, for small business and home users, there is a responsibility for them to provide adequate protection against evolving cyber threats. And provide they do, mostly.
    They even do joint investigation with them big dudes such as Symantec when there is "incident" of interest.
    What is left to be seen is whether the demand for larger piece of marketshare pie [hunger for profit] opens some doors for unethical practices such as pushing smaller players aside.
    What we're experiencing are 3 world cyberwars:
    1: open warfare between cyber criminals and av companies
    2: covert/clandestine cyber warfare of espionage, sabotage, infiltration, theft, which ofter involves governments and even some av companies to cooperate
    3: customers count, where most av's compete for a bigger number. Agressive marketing comes into play.

    Problems grow larger, solutions can barely keep up the pace and in the future, radical changes would be required. In the end, we are all threat/expert analysts doing a great deal of help to av companies do their job. Except they get paid.
     
  4. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Kaspersky Lab – 10 controversial moments in the history of Russia's most famous tech firm
    http://www.techworld.com/picture-ga...ory-of-russias-most-famous-tech-firm-3623144/
     
  5. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Antivirus industry damaged by the Kaspersky’ case
    http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/39391/cyber-crime/antivirus-industry-damaged.html
     
  6. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    IMO Eugene's word on this is worth less than Reuters' anonymous guys.

    It's like the AMD case, when people found a string called "backdoor-test" in AMD's proprietary Linux driver: if it's not a backdoor AMD will say it's not; but if it is a backdoor they'll say it's not a backdoor anway ;)

    So I really don't care if he says "no we didn't do that". So far nobody can prove anything, although the accusations are more than possible.
     
  7. Azure Phoenix

    Azure Phoenix Registered Member

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    Is it still worth less even if they were defended by a third party?
    "Kaspersky’s protestations were backed by Symantec reverse engineer and researcher, Liam O’Murchu, who expressed surprise at the allegations."
    http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/kaspersky-hits-back-at-false/
     
  8. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Credentials also don't matter. Nothing here matters, actually; the original allegations, Eugene's word, or this symantec researcher's word. All of those are anecdotal "evidence", which aren't evidence for anything, really. Be it Eugene's or Obama's word, they all can be considered BS until actual evidence is provided.

    This goes to the two employees as well. Can their allegations be true? Yes. Are they true? Probably, probably not. Who knows.
    Can Eugene's defenses be true? Yes, it can. Are they true just because he has a big name and has a researcher who was surprised by the allegations? Oh hell no!
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2015
  9. niki

    niki Registered Member

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    http://www.scmagazine.com/kaspersky-responds-to-reuters-antivirus-story/article/432907/
    Since it was vlk from Avast who started this thread, below is Avast!'s reply.
    There is more to read at the above link.
     
  10. JerryM

    JerryM Registered Member

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    Until I have better evidence I will continue with KIS.
    Jerry
     
  11. SnowFlakes

    SnowFlakes Registered Member

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    I always told you, do not use any Russian product ever.

    ~Comment removed~
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 19, 2015
  12. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    Let's wait and see how this goes without attacking each other. All we know is what is presented to us by the press. Let's not use this news to turn this into a political issue.
     
  13. Solarlynx

    Solarlynx Registered Member

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    Demonisation of Russia in mass media gives results. This thread shows it very clearly.
     
  14. FleischmannTV

    FleischmannTV Registered Member

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    Yes, the damage is done. It would be interesting to know how many people have made up their minds just by reading the headline alone, without inquiring any further.
     
  15. clocks

    clocks Registered Member

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    Don't worry. People that are leary of Russian software stopped using it long before this.
     
  16. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    I would like to point out that a software nationality shouldn't be taken into consideration.

    It doesn't matter if the software comes from the US, or Russia, or India, or wherever. If the Source Code is open then it's possible to verify the integrity of the software, but once you use a lot of Proprietary software you start having to blindly trust other people. And as history is showing, trusting big US software could be a LOT worse than trusting big Russian software, specially since the NSA has the power to give, say, to Microsoft or Cisco, a National Security Letter saying "put this backdoor in your software and keep your mouth shut about it".

    So even IF the accusations towards Kaspersky are true, this should not be a reason that drives people away from Russian software at all.
     
  17. Justintime123

    Justintime123 Registered Member

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  18. phalanaxus

    phalanaxus Registered Member

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    Kaspersky has a special backdoor, so Eugene can enter your room through the webcam while you are sleeping. :rolleyes:

    Joke aside, the link you gave is almost exactly the same as the first link given on first post. Am I missing anything new ?
     
  19. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Does he? I hardly think so.
     
  20. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. Regarding Reuters, see this Post.
     
  21. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Exclusive: Russia's Kaspersky threatened to 'rub out' rival, email shows
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/28/us-kaspersky-rivals-idUSKCN0QX2GO20150828

     
  22. phalanaxus

    phalanaxus Registered Member

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    Yay more anonymous workers and wait for it, undisclosed e-mails for Reuters. Yet they blame Kaspersky for not disclosing the samples of the attack which Kaspersky said they suffered from.
    Excellent example of good journalism from Reuters again :rolleyes:
     
  23. FleischmannTV

    FleischmannTV Registered Member

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    I would love to see some e-mail exchange between the executives of the providers of these so called "free" products and the pup peddlers and data mining companies.
     
  24. GakunGak

    GakunGak Registered Member

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    And now, Dr. Web :)
    Source
    http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/09/like-kaspersky-russian-antivirus-firm-dr-web-tested-rivals/

     
  25. phalanaxus

    phalanaxus Registered Member

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    Hmm take the truth, manipulate what the truth is about and mix it with BS, e voila we have a news piece.

    1-Did Kaspersky conduct experiments to see whether competitors were using their signatures ? Correct, Kaspersky officially declared this.
    2-Did Kaspersky form files to make competitors flag safe files and harm computers ? Don't know for certain (no solid proof; anonymous this, anonymous that), Kaspersky officially declined this.

    Let's see what the quoted part says:

    Kaspersky is accused of faking malware (OK), Kaspersky denied it (OK). Next sentence starts with "but" (on the contrary; yet - dictionary). ( Hence we have contradictory evidence or speculation). Dr. web CEO says they experimented on ways to expose blindly following AV vendors. (Wait a bit now, we had something contradictory... Or did we ? Kaspersky declared their experiments, now Dr. Web declares similar experiments - i.e. no malformed files)

    A similar but is placed in 5th paragraph, too tired to comment on it, just read carefully.
     
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