Joseph Cox – The Daily Beast:
But one aspect of Russian-born cybersecurity company Kaspersky’s anti-virus product is threatening the sacred trust of its hundreds of millions of users around the world: the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus can, if they feel like it, grab a copy of customer’s own files by leveraging Kaspersky’s software installed on computers across the world, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal.
I used Kaspersky’s then-called AVP software in the early 2000s, when the company made its entry into the US market. An anti-malware application was (and is) a must-install software product on computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, a magnet for malware. After initial doubts about turning security of my systems over to a Russian company’s software I went ahead, because it was well-regarded among anti-malware products. It caused the least disruption, didn’t noticeably slow the operating system, and caused the fewest false-positive alerts. It also had one of the best success rates at finding actual malware.
Turns out my doubts were well-placed.
The company may have been unaware of what was going on with their product, but someone in the company was aware. Software code doesn’t write itself.
Not yet, at least.
#Kaspersky #Labs #AVP #anti-virus #FSB #intelligence #agencies #Russian
A Random Stroll 