Kaspersky Lab Has Been Working With Russian Intelligence (bloomberg.com) 175
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Internal company emails obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek show that Kaspersky Lab has maintained a much closer working relationship with Russia's main intelligence agency, the FSB, than it has publicly admitted. It has developed security technology at the spy agency's behest and worked on joint projects the CEO knew would be embarrassing if made public. The previously unreported emails, from October 2009, are from a thread between Eugene Kaspersky and senior staff. In Russian, Kaspersky outlines a project undertaken in secret a year earlier "per a big request on the Lubyanka side," a reference to the FSB offices. Kaspersky Lab confirmed the emails are authentic.
The software that the CEO was referring to had the stated purpose of protecting clients, including the Russian government, from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, but its scope went further. Kaspersky Lab would also cooperate with internet hosting companies to locate bad actors and block their attacks, while assisting with "active countermeasures," a capability so sensitive that Kaspersky advised his staff to keep it secret. In this case, Kaspersky may have been referring to something even more rare in the security world. A person familiar with the company's anti-DDoS system says it's made up of two parts. The first consists of traditional defensive techniques, including rerouting malicious traffic to servers that can harmlessly absorb it. The second part is more unusual: Kaspersky provides the FSB with real-time intelligence on the hackers' location and sends experts to accompany the FSB and Russian police when they conduct raids. That's what Kaspersky was referring to in the emails, says the person familiar with the system. They weren't just hacking the hackers; they were banging down the doors. Kaspersky Lab has issued a statement in response to Bloomberg's report. It reads in part: "Regardless of how the facts are misconstrued to fit in with a hypothetical, false theory, Kaspersky Lab, and its executives, do not have inappropriate ties with any government. The company does regularly work with governments and law enforcement agencies around the world with the sole purpose of fighting cybercrime. In the internal communications referenced within the recent article, the facts are once again either being misinterpreted or manipulated to fit the agenda of certain individuals desperately wanting there to be inappropriate ties between the company, its CEO and the Russian government, but no matter what communication they claim to have, the facts clearly remain there is no evidence because no such inappropriate ties exist."
The software that the CEO was referring to had the stated purpose of protecting clients, including the Russian government, from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, but its scope went further. Kaspersky Lab would also cooperate with internet hosting companies to locate bad actors and block their attacks, while assisting with "active countermeasures," a capability so sensitive that Kaspersky advised his staff to keep it secret. In this case, Kaspersky may have been referring to something even more rare in the security world. A person familiar with the company's anti-DDoS system says it's made up of two parts. The first consists of traditional defensive techniques, including rerouting malicious traffic to servers that can harmlessly absorb it. The second part is more unusual: Kaspersky provides the FSB with real-time intelligence on the hackers' location and sends experts to accompany the FSB and Russian police when they conduct raids. That's what Kaspersky was referring to in the emails, says the person familiar with the system. They weren't just hacking the hackers; they were banging down the doors. Kaspersky Lab has issued a statement in response to Bloomberg's report. It reads in part: "Regardless of how the facts are misconstrued to fit in with a hypothetical, false theory, Kaspersky Lab, and its executives, do not have inappropriate ties with any government. The company does regularly work with governments and law enforcement agencies around the world with the sole purpose of fighting cybercrime. In the internal communications referenced within the recent article, the facts are once again either being misinterpreted or manipulated to fit the agenda of certain individuals desperately wanting there to be inappropriate ties between the company, its CEO and the Russian government, but no matter what communication they claim to have, the facts clearly remain there is no evidence because no such inappropriate ties exist."
Big Nothing (Score:5, Funny)
To be fair, Eugene Kaspersky did meet with Russian intelligence, but they only discussed adoption.
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To be fair, Eugene Kaspersky did meet with Russian intelligence, but they only discussed adoption.
Someone's finally going to adopt Eugene? Aww, that's cute. ;)
At the risk of my oath of patriotism (Score:5, Insightful)
What nation with a powerful central government doesn't demand indelicate acts from its major corporations?
Re:At the risk of my oath of patriotism (Score:4, Insightful)
What nation with a powerful central government doesn't demand indelicate acts from its major corporations?
It's more about scale of such acts, and these days Russia and the US are doing this to a ridiculous degree.
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What nation with a powerful central government doesn't demand indelicate acts from its major corporations?
It's more about scale of such acts, and these days Russia and the US are doing this to a ridiculous degree.
Right. If, as the evidence your claim implies, you are not from one of these two nations you mention, the chances your own country is free of this blight is on the order of the lottery... as likely to free of powerful influence in gov't & industry as you'd be having missionary sex with a polar bear and a regular bear, on the same day.
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Actually, my country government can't find their asses with both hands. They're thoroughly busy firing any employee with a shred of competency and replacing them with 20 years old nephews of their party members. So even though they violate the Constitution at almost every step, they're so incompetent they're not a threat to anyone living abroad.
The previous government had its flaws but neither gross incompetence nor illegal spying was seriously alleged.
Re:At the risk of my oath of patriotism (Score:5, Funny)
a polar bear and a regular bear,
I sexually identify as a polar bear and find this to be highly offensive. You think grizzly bears, brown bears, panda bears, water bears, etc are all "regular bears" but somehow polar bears are not "regular bears". I can't believe in this day and age that we have bigoted polar-arkoudaphobic people like you on the internet.
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> a polar bear and a regular bear
A polar bear is a regular (rectangular) bear after a coordinate transform.
captcha: teenage
You don't say (Score:5, Insightful)
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Imagine that: a government hiring a cyber security company to assist with cyber security. Insane, right ?!?!
It's precisely due to comments (and sentiments) such as yours that Kaspersky felt compelled to keep this secret. The anti-Russian hysteria pushed by western media was already a joke, and is fast approaching ludicrous.
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Re: You don't say (Score:2)
Not 1785 the same because FSB is the domestic security service of Russia. The closest US equivalent would be FBI with the difference that FSB is also responsible for border and coast guard. They are literally the Russian feds.
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Obviously, but that was not my point. For some reason most people think that FSB spies in foreign countries which simply isn't the case. SVR does that, FSB is Russian FBI.
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The FSB is not the former KGB, it is only a fairly small part of the former KGB (mainly second, sixth and seventh directorate, later also the border guard directorate and a part of the 16th directorate) and is not active world wide, that is the responsibility of SVR [wikipedia.org], which is far more the spiritual successor of KGB than FSB will ever be. Is that so difficult to comprehend?
Why is our media... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is our media... (Score:5, Insightful)
More viewers = more money for ads
Who cares that world may fall apart in nuclear tornado, media bosses pockets are more important.
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It seems to me that the US and Russia should be natural allies.
We were. Putin visited the U.S. on more than a few occasions as a friend, and then Obama decided that Syria should be a target. I'm sure that had nothing to do with how much money our Secretary of State's "Foundation" got from the Saudi's after Syria refused to let them build a pipeline to Europe.
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Syria as a target directly impacts Russia. Their only forward permanent military base is located there. Syria has been an ally of Russia for a long time. They're what Israel is to the US.
It boggles the shit out of me how many "liberals" blindly supported Queen Spy Clinton during her campaign as she was banging the drums for a war with the most heavily nuclear weaponized nation in the world.
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Do you guys have zero knowledge of what's been going on the past 100 years? The US and Russia/USSR have been adversaries far more often than they've been allies.
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Do you guys have zero knowledge of what's been going on the past 100 years?
I only know what I read on the internet.
Russia and USA were long-time allies until the democrats ruined the relationship!!!
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The Soviet Union was an evil empire. It was a legitimate superpower. Their Communist philosophy told them to conquer the whole world.
And who asks the question *why Russia turned communistic? :)
(Let me do it
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As far as I know, both the US and the Soviets were guilty about Afghanistan. What's worse, the current evil of Afghanistan, the Taliban, were groomed by the CIA.
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The European Union was trying to get the financially struggling Ukrainians to join their Union and offered a tad under $1 billion in aid.
The Russians said "We'll give you $15 billion if you don't"
The democratically elected government of the Ukraine chose Russia's $15 billion over the E.U.'s $1 Billion.
The U.S. then spent $5 billion overthrowing the democratically elected government of the Ukraine, installing what are essentially NAZI's into power.
Russia then seized Crimea.
So yes
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Assad's treatment of his internal opposition (gas/exterminate them all) and fomenting of Daesh to blacken his opponents directly leading to their seizing control of much or Iraq had more than a little to do with Syria becoming a target -- and yet, unlike Russia the U.S. has only targeted Daesh & not people trying just to unseat that maniac Assad.
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Yeah yeah, it's all a plot against RUSSIAN interests. Because RUSSIAN interests are the important part, not that Assad and his father gencide all opposition like that which swept through much of the Arab world. Nor that the Ukraine after decades of Russian domination could look west and see a brighter future with the west than with Putins kleptocracy. Because RUSSIAN interests are so much more important than auto determination - except when it serves RUSSIAN interests - then it's OK.
The thing about the RUSS
Re: Why is our media... (Score:4, Insightful)
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It might have something to do with the Russian human rights record. This is especially relevant to the subject of software security when dealing with a country where it is dangerous to be a journalist.
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You mean like China? Funny how there isn't that level of the media going on, and on, and on, and on about them.
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AC certainly doesn't express it in a politically correct way, but at least he has a point.
People who flat-out complain about the "media" tend to have a hidden political agenda - far right or far left or religious extremists, they all like to pick on the media in general for obvious reasons. They also consistently fail to name any alternative 'fringe news sources' that would be more reliable than comparing major news outlets. When you ask them, they either come up with nothing at all or with obviously ridicu
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I agree about the obvious reasons, but I would like to include as a valid reason that the media has betrayed them or misinformed them.
So many stories like Iraq having WoMD, Iraqi soldiers ripping the babies out of incubators, omission of things that are important to know in order to get a full picture of the situation, CNN faking news on video, BBC reporters al
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Your reply is not very satisfying or convincing to me. You come up with one site on the Internet for additional information - you could have just as well mentioned books or Wikipedia -, put a false dichotomy in my mouth and then mention a few cases which were either corrected by the very same media or are cases of deliberate and massive government-steered disinformation campaigns that are well-known, because they have been uncovered by the very same mass media you're criticizing.
I also cannot recommend "glo
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You mention cases being 'corrected' by the same media, no, not the same, other.
If Putin is reported snubbing a BBC reporter who asks him about the suffering of Syrian people by the Dutch media, a British subject posts the correction showing the whole video, where Putin actually talks for 20 minutes to the reporter.
If CNN shows the daughter of the embassador of Quwait to the UN lying about being a n
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They have much more in common than they do differences.
You mean both are racist, fairly restrictive authoritarian regimes under oligarchic rule by the 1% with an expressed disdain for basic human rights who also wage aggressive wars from time to time and spend a large amount of their tax payers' money on the military and an absurdly overblown intelligence community? You might have a point there...
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...the defender of liberty and freedom, a bastion of democracy...
That's only the narrative.
Unfortunately, and without any exception, all American 'struggles' to 'bring freedom and democracy', have resulted in the total devastation, and immeasurable suffering by the people, of the countries 'liberated' from their 'cruel dictator' this way.
You must be joking. It hasn't 'changed'... it never was.
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Gov/mil contacts have free stuff to offer. Govs and mil always have lots of domestic and international stories to share.
Also the money to investigate one story might have to go further and take less time.
So more interviews are done to keep up with blogs, the 24 h news cycle.
Also consider the role of news aggregation websites. Suddenly news is fast, accurate and from all over the USA and the world.
News that was once published for and consumed inside the Beltway is now natio
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Rule of Acquisition #34: War is good for business.
They want Trump out (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not us. It's Mr. Putin who is being a dick all across the world because he's butthurt that Russia is not playing with the big boys anymore.
He wants to feel important and be feared and respected like your teenage neighbourhood bully. He hasn't gotten over the collapse of the Soviet Union which was of course the most glorious nation to ever have smiled upon the world.
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I'd like to see more details... (Score:3)
But I'm not really feeling the outrage here, at least with regard to what was reported.
Lets read what the AC linked to (Score:1)
"worry U.S. national security officials "
"six U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agency chiefs were asked"
"While the U.S. government hasn’t disclosed any evidence of the ties"
"A person familiar with"
"The U.S. government hasn’t identified any evidence connecting"
Consider all the good work thats been done over the years.
Equation Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Work to publish on Gauss, Regin, Fla
Slashdot became political loudspeaker? (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot was safe harbor for me for more than a decade from filthy political news and "news for housewives".
Seems its time to put dot and say bye bye?
P.S. Yes i'm russian, and i hate politics and propaganda. Peace!
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Slashdot's tagline from the beginning included the words "Stuff That Matters".
Whether or not you feel your safe space has been invaded, this stuff MATTERS. The headlines that are political are usually clear, easy enough for you to avoid. It's not as if you see one that says something about quantum dots or M-theory and then turns out to be all about how Trump would love to suck Putin's dick.
Slashdot is aging (Score:5, Insightful)
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P.S. Yes i'm russian, and i hate politics and propaganda. Peace!
Yes, as do most of your countrymen, and mine. That's why both of our governments are so spectacularly fucked up. We let other people run our governments for us.
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Boy, calm down, that's nothing in comparison to the past. You should have been alive when the Cold War was raging... all those pesky US fake news outlets going against Prawda!
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If I were a paid troll... (Score:2)
What is this world coming to? (Score:1)
Next thing you'll be telling me Facebook is a project of the CI%!*^#.NO CARRIER
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So although it's not a direct project of the CIA, I bet it's highly useful to them.
It was only unforeseen that the ancestor of Cambridge Analytica would suck up so much information from the facebook likes that Trump could win the elections (and Farrage the Brexit vote).
Big surprise (Score:1)
In a move that literally doesn't surprise anybody... That's why you should trust anything made by foreign countries, especially China and Russia.
This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess everyone's forgotten all about RSA Security's cozy relationship with those friendly NSA folks. -PCP
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I guess I am not seeing the issue here (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if Kaspersky doesn't want to do anything bad, I can't imagine that Russian intelligence doesn't have someone on the inside. Just as I can't imaging the CIA or NSA doesn't have someone inside MS and Google.
I don't know why this is such a big deal - they are a Russian company, which means they are (whether they like it or not) somewhat under the influence of the Russian government. Just as (again) MS and Google are somewhat under the influence of the US government.
Stop freaking out about it already, and if you consider their products just make sure you think about the ways this could be a problem for you or not.
And frankly if Kaspersky is helping the intelligence guys kick down the doors of DOS script kiddies, more power to them. It's not like the guys who do DOS attacks are generally all that smart or useful, they're just damned annoying to the rest of us.
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Just as (again) MS and Google are somewhat under the influence of the US government.
This.
How do you say 'National Security Letter' in Russian?
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Even if Kaspersky doesn't want to do anything bad, I can't imagine that Russian intelligence doesn't have someone on the inside. Just as I can't imaging the CIA or NSA doesn't have someone inside MS and Google.
Hahaha, you're so naive...
Why would the CIA *and* NSA not have 'someone' inside Kaspersky?
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Hahaha, you're so naive...
Why would the CIA *and* NSA not have 'someone' inside Kaspersky?
You mean like Ruslan Stoyanov? [krebsonsecurity.com]
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Can we have a tech discussion for once? (Score:4)
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If
Kaspersky Lab would also cooperate with internet hosting companies
you can easily find the C&C server and from there you can try to find the man behind it.
Re: Can we have a tech discussion for once? (Score:3)
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The hacker doesn't log into the nodes, the nodes check a C&C server in small intervals; this being easy to code and hard to detect locally is the primary reason that most botnets do it. and the ability to find them using a simple intersection is the reason that botnets either use a dictionary, a backup list or an algorithm to generate random domain names on demand.
You and whoever upvoted you, go back to school.
Re: Can we have a tech discussion for once? (Score:2)
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Code samples for the botnet client part and cisco/juniper traffic filtering, logging and aggregation commands are available online, and they work, I've seen it work.
Re: Can we have a tech discussion for once? (Score:2)
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Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/386/ [xkcd.com]
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Re: Can we have a tech discussion for once? (Score:2)
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OMG. That couldn't happen in the US! (Score:2)
Find an exploit put into their products to spy on the users that can be traced to the FSB, then its news.
It is all industrial scale eavesdropping (Score:2)
I think it is time to start building computing from scratch, from the ground, with open hardware and software, with command line tools at first. With big transparent casings, so that we can actually trace wires and compon
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Software (Score:2)
Virus Detected.
Please Select Option:
1) Quarantine
2) Clean (Delete)
3) Send FSB (Delete with Extreme Prejudice)
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Because we're not racist like you.
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"Russian integrity", "Russian democracy" or "Russian sobriety" would indeed be oxymorons. You can't deny a good minority of Russians to be intelligent, though. Their country suffering from an unbroken series of bloody dictators for at least 500 years is another matter, and most people learned that trying to fight against the dictator currently in power is far more unhealthy than it would be in most other countries.
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One of the most brilliant listening devices was designed by a Russian named Leon Theremin. Yeah the theremin guy invented this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Oh no (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty funny considering it's well known that nearly ALL top tech companies in the USA have cooperated extensively with multiple American intelligence and law enforcement agencies with details of actual incidents now in the public domain.
Meanwhile we're supposed to give a fuck about vague insinuations with one Russian software company???
Re: Oh no (Score:5, Insightful)
Really?
Last time checked, Apple refused to decrypt an iPhone for the FBI. Google, and Amazon also force the government to subpoena them for information. It's bad business to give up your customer's data, and America is capatalist.
When you protest in Russia, you get killed one way another, possibly by polonium laced water. What happens in America? At worst a civil infraction.
To illustrate my point further: when was the last time you bribed a police officer? After all the stuff I've seen, I actually like police officers now.
All of these Americans who have never visited Russia have no idea how good we have it. Obama as far as i know did not have a bank account in Panama, but both Putin and Poroshenko did.
It's disappointing to see how we've lost faith in our own country, which has spread freedom across the world, for which other coubtries thank us for having done so. I never trusted Kaspersky, and now I have a reason to.
Sure disagree with me. America sucks, right? Well when Putin surreptitiously takes over America in 2020 (next time via democratic candidate because no one is suspecting it, and that's what a troll does), I bet you'll be begging for old America: where people take pride in their jobs. Ambulances show up to your house in minutes, not hours, and you don't need to bribe people to get things you want.
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These are trolls, just ignore them. Russia has a special eye on Germany, not just for geostrategical reasons but also because due to his past Putin considers it somehow his home turf.
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Well, it all depends on where you would prefer your data not to show up - in the hand of the GRU or FSB, or in the hand of the NSA or FBI? To be honest, judging from the past actions of the US and Russia, I would avoid antivirus software from those countries altogether. France and the UK are out of question, too, they have a long history of totalitarian surveillance measures. Maybe I'm wrong, but from all I've heard - endless discussions about the legality of government Trojans, etc. - I'd find it less like
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The company does regularly work with governments and law enforcement agencies around the world with the sole purpose of fighting cybercrime.
And I don't see what's wrong with that.
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I see no problem with the FSB banging the door of a few Russian hackers. What did the Author of this crap expect, how should the number of Russian hackers dwindle? Sending in the FBI/CIA?