Biden administration preparing to prevent Americans from using Kaspersky

"The Biden administration is preparing to take the unusual step of issuing an order that would prevent US companies and citizens from using software made by a major Russian cybersecurity firm [Kaspersky] because of national security concerns, five US officials familiar with the matter told CNN.

The move, which is being finalized and could happen as soon as this month, would use relatively new Commerce Department authorities built on executive orders signed by Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump to prohibit Kaspersky Lab from providing certain products and services in the US, the sources said..."

(Despite previous topics respecting Kaspersky and national security concerns, I believe this one merits its own thread)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/politics/biden-administration-americans-russian-software/index.html

 

Well & good by me.

 

Meh. Ultimately I have no stake in this, I don't use a product from this country or that one. I just hope it doesn't spread beyond this.

 

He won't recall, no worries. It's the puppeteers that worry me.

 

Russia - Kaspersky
China - TikTok
Australia - anything and everything - because we use the metric system

 

Me too.

 

Hey, everybody uses the metric system, there's like 3 countries who don't.

 

I didn't understand your replies, do you guys agree with this move or what? It may seem a bit overly paranoid, but it became clear to me many years ago that AV's are the perfect spying tools. Especially because they connect to the cloud all of the time and have full admin access. I'm not even fully comfortable with Win Defender, where you can at least disable cloud scanning, the question is, is it really disabled?

 

I know I guess I should have prefixed my response with the post title -
Biden administration preparing to prevent Americans from using Kaspersky

 

My agreement or disagreement gets too complicated for extended discussion in this topic. As for AV having admin access, it actually has system access in most cases. It has more access than you do. And if you have disabled cloud scanning in Defender but you left SmartScreen enabled... they are still uploading your files. If you disable that too? Who knows? I don't have the time and resources to explore that to see.

 

Exactly so. It comes down to who you're willing to trust.

 

Four, actually. Liberia, Myanmar, the U.K. and the U.S.

 

Yes correct, AV's are virtually unstoppable because of full system access. I suppose they can even access folders that have been protected by file/folder protection tools.

Yes correct, eventually you will have to trust somebody and since I'm already running Windows, which has plenty of other ways to spy on me, I might as well use Win Defender. And we all know that Avast betrayed everyone's trust. I hope in the future we will become less dependant on the cloud, and that AV's will use AI/machine learning to identify threats.

 

Yes, banned today:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/antivirus-russia/2024/06/20/id/1169561/

 

Expected one would surmise. Still i left AV's behind as far back as HIPS and never had to look back. Windows Defender is okay i guess but on my Windows 10 i even shut it off. No need to subscribe to Nerd Programs when there are enough totally effective third party mega programs that intercept and harden windows even to every tickle internally that these beasts throw.

Endpoint third party security programs have grit and muscle to ward off ANYTHING if one takes the time & effort to deploy a few.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/21/24183274/kaspersky-lab-sanctions-treasury-department-russia

It's good to know that the Government is there to protect us from these privacy and security dangers.
BUT...
The US government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in massive, illegal dragnet surveillance of the domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline

 

US sanctions 12 Kaspersky Lab execs for working in Russian tech sector

Read all about it here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...lab-execs-for-working-in-russian-tech-sector/

 

Its the never ending game that politicians like to play.

 

Admit it to ourselves. We are pawns in the overall scheme of things when it comes to our machines and choices anymore.

Microsoft lead the way and here we find ourselves LIMITED, after dishing out of our home or business budget to the big bad dogs that just dare us to try to stop them.

 

It is no secret that K employees have been infiltrated by malware. Highly likely that the conclusions from this operation led to the banning of this software on the American market. I hope that other countries will follow this path as well.

 

Once Kaspersky detected NSA spyware, it was inevitable. Kaspersky engine can not nor it is obliged to lower the detection to exclude tools used by Patriot Act.

 

They are banning the sale of it. . . .
so use the free version.

 

In my opinion this is a no brainer. I would have done it long ago. In my view there are plenty reasons why this is the right thing to do for the United States. One reason: Protect The Election.

Bo

 

The main concern is sending data to Kaspersky, so merely banning sales would not do anything, people could buy the licence on ebay or via VPN.
This ban has worldwide implications though, US companies can refuse to cooperate with companies using Kaspersky to scan their shared data.