Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#11

Post by Demiurge » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #9

dbhattar wrote: post #5

We have started seeing a lot of bad publicity and innuendos targeted toward Kaspersky after they uncovered and published about hacking attack against their infrastructure in recent past. Feels suspicious to me especially with comments attributed to 'former employees'.

It's great that you read these things with some suspicion, but would you use the same suspicion when reading allegations against US or European companies? And, their main development being done in Moscow, do you expect current employees to stick their heads up? There aren't a lot of protections for whistle blowers in Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd be declared traitors, if they did reveal something like this in a form…

How would you read them if they were coming from a Russian news source?

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#12

Post by pidg » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #9

dbhattar wrote: post #5

We have started seeing a lot of bad publicity and innuendos targeted toward Kaspersky after they uncovered and published about hacking attack against their infrastructure in recent past. Feels suspicious to me especially with comments attributed to 'former employees'.

It's great that you read these things with some suspicion, but would you use the same suspicion when reading allegations against US or European companies? And, their main development being done in Moscow, do you expect current employees to stick their heads up? There aren't a lot of protections for whistle blowers in Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd be declared traitors, if they did reveal something like this in a form…

Why would they? The context is different.

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#13

Post by DickingAround » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #9

dbhattar wrote: post #5

We have started seeing a lot of bad publicity and innuendos targeted toward Kaspersky after they uncovered and published about hacking attack against their infrastructure in recent past. Feels suspicious to me especially with comments attributed to 'former employees'.

It's great that you read these things with some suspicion, but would you use the same suspicion when reading allegations against US or European companies? And, their main development being done in Moscow, do you expect current employees to stick their heads up? There aren't a lot of protections for whistle blowers in Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd be declared traitors, if they did reveal something like this in a form…

Yes, if they were in a similar position. You have to admit, Kaspersky lab has been making a lot of powerful enemies this last decade or so. With cyber-security as big of a deal as it is now, it's obvious that smear campaigns would be on the table of options. (That said, how would I know, they could have done this. But I'll argue the paranoia is strongly warranted.)

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#14

Post by pppp » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

Title is inaccurate - the important part at the end was cut off: "- Ex-employees"

Accusation is presented as fact.

This would be a better title: "Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals - say ex-employees"

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#15

Post by mdekkers » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #9

dbhattar wrote: post #5

We have started seeing a lot of bad publicity and innuendos targeted toward Kaspersky after they uncovered and published about hacking attack against their infrastructure in recent past. Feels suspicious to me especially with comments attributed to 'former employees'.

It's great that you read these things with some suspicion, but would you use the same suspicion when reading allegations against US or European companies? And, their main development being done in Moscow, do you expect current employees to stick their heads up? There aren't a lot of protections for whistle blowers in Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd be declared traitors, if they did reveal something like this in a form…

I, for one, would, yes.

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#16

Post by mc32 » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

Demiurge wrote: post #11

mc32 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that you read these things with some suspicion, but would you use the same suspicion when reading allegations against US or European companies? And, their main development being done in Moscow, do you expect current employees to stick their heads up? There aren't a lot of protections for whistle blowers in Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd be declared traitors, if they did reveal something like this in a form…

How would you read them if they were coming from a Russian news source?

Always question sources... Don't just question those you don't agree with or the top dog. Question your supporters, their motives, question the under dog too, the under dog is the most likely to take advantage of sympathies.

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#17

Post by mdekkers » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

JanSolo wrote: post #3

Isn't is a breach of trust for a protector-against-malware to also be a producer-of-malware? I'd certainly reconsider my Kaspersky license if I had one.

on the basis of a badly sourced article that offers no evidence, other than some rumors spread by anonymous ex employees? This is a company that has uncovered serious misbehaviour by government sponsored malware writers. Glad you don't run my security.

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#18

Post by JulienSchmidt » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #7

I can see if rivals were 'aping' their software, whatever that means, that Eug might get angry. It's another thing to engage in this kind of retaliatory behavior because not only can it lead to data loss for users caught in this juvenile dispute but raises other grave questions about what else they might engage in. Most worrisome is what other unscrupulous behavior is he willing to engage in? Is he willing to do the…

More worrisome is what CAN be done. If they don't abuse it, someone else will eventually. Probably in a less obvious way, to hurt specific users only.

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#19

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

dbhattar wrote: post #5

We have started seeing a lot of bad publicity and innuendos targeted toward Kaspersky after they uncovered and published about hacking attack against their infrastructure in recent past. Feels suspicious to me especially with comments attributed to 'former employees'.

I agree that it smells a bit, but take a quick look at the author, Joseph Menn. He's been floating around tech reporting for a while and seems to have some netsec chops. This isn't an article coming out of the State Department or some anonymous blog; there's a name behind it of someone who'd have their reputation to lose if it turned out to be a bunch of false allegations. (Not that that's never happened before...)

Re: Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals, say ex-employees

#20

Post by yetihehe » Fri, Aug 14, 2015, 3:22 PM UTC

The whole article sounds funny.

"VirusTotal had no immediate comment."

"[...], Kaspersky denied using this technique. It said it too had been a victim of such an attack in November 2012, when an "unknown third party" manipulated Kaspersky into misclassifying files [...]"

"The former Kaspersky employees said Microsoft was one of the rivals [...] They declined to give a detailed account of any specific attack."

"In a subsequent interview on Wednesday, Batchelder declined to comment on any role Kaspersky may have played in the 2013 printer code problems or any other attacks. Reuters has no evidence linking Kaspersky to the printer code attack."

"Avast Chief Operating Officer Ondrej Vlcek told Reuters in April that he suspected the offenders were well-equipped malware writers and "wanted to have some fun" at the industry's expense. He did not respond to a request on Thursday for comment on the allegation that Kaspersky had induced false positives."

So, no one says it's Kaspersky, someone called "former employees" says it was, but can't provide any example...