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DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

dhs.gov

11–20 of 115 posts

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#11
The US declaring that it think that an government should think hard about what foreign products to let into it's core infrastructure is going to have consequences the intended ones.

That is probably great news if your an European, or especially Asian software vendor trying to compete with any US based company for local government contracts, as the US have now legitimized any concern about foreign governments(including the US) forcing back doors into commercial products.

It might not be all that good if your an Californian start up trying to make money on the European and Asian market as what was a hard sell, now got harder.

Though it's not a new trend as were heading towards a situation where IT procurement is getting incredibly political and where the legal department is increasingly vetoing solutions that otherwise would have gotten selected due to jurisdiction issue in relationship to stored data.

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#12

Is there some sort clandestine effort by Russian intel agencies to force US government to install McAfee Antivirus and subsequently cripple the productivity of said government agencies?

Maybe it's the Gerasimov Doctrine in action [0], i.e. Chaos All The Things!!!

[0] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/gerasimov-...

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#13

Is there some sort clandestine effort by Russian intel agencies to force US government to install McAfee Antivirus and subsequently cripple the productivity of said government agencies?

Maybe it's the Gerasimov Doctrine in action [0], i.e. Chaos All The Things!!! [0] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/gerasimov-...

[deleted]

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#14

None of the following is confirmed, but I keep seeing articles online hinting around this, or implying this. Essentially it sounds like is known in classified circles that Kaspersky works closely with and supports Russian Intelligence (FSB). It seems while the US knew about this it had a spy within Kaspersky and was their source for finding out what they were up to. The accused spy was arrested by the FSB recently so…

There was also this article a few days ago about an intentional CIA backdoor in Microsoft products that Kaspersky was plugging: https://theunhivedmind.com/news/2017/09/12/us-explodes-after...

Never heard of that site. Any reputable site reporting in this that we can trust?

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#15

The fact that they allowed it in the first place is mind boggling, the people that run Kaspersky love Russia.

Tech sovereignty is going to be one of the most important international issues of the next few decades. The US has mostly lucked out so far, being the home of the overwhelming majority of major tech firms. But China has very purposefully taken steps to secure and guarantee their technological sovereignty, and there is movement in Europe to do the same.

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#16

The US declaring that it think that an government should think hard about what foreign products to let into it's core infrastructure is going to have consequences the intended ones. That is probably great news if your an European, or especially Asian software vendor trying to compete with any US based company for local government contracts, as the US have now legitimized any concern about foreign governments(includin…

The US hasn't really legitimized anything new. If you are a major power with barely competent government, you have been concerned about technological sovereignty for decades now.

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#17
This is very bad for Kaspersky. Put aside how much revenue the entire GSA market represents for a security company (it'll be a double-digit percentage for a typical company). The bigger problem is that in the wake of this, every systemically important financial firm will also eject Kaspersky. In addition to being another significant chunk of revenue, major financial firms set the buying direction for IT security for the whole industry.

If you're wondering what the backstory is here, well, join the club. Dave Aitel sums it up: US Senators John McCain and Marco Rubio claim the US IC has presented them some kind of smoking gun evidence that some kind of line was crossed. They're not planning to share more information. Anybody who tells you they know more about what's going on is probably just spreading gossip.

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#18

The fact that they allowed it in the first place is mind boggling, the people that run Kaspersky love Russia.

Tech sovereignty is going to be one of the most important international issues of the next few decades. The US has mostly lucked out so far, being the home of the overwhelming majority of major tech firms. But China has very purposefully taken steps to secure and guarantee their technological sovereignty, and there is movement in Europe to do the same.

I wonder where the technological sovereignty of the individual exists in the midst of this…

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also this article a few days ago about an intentional CIA backdoor in Microsoft products that Kaspersky was plugging: https://theunhivedmind.com/news/2017/09/12/us-explodes-after...

Never heard of that site. Any reputable site reporting in this that we can trust?

This has analysis of the kernel bug:

https://breakingmalware.com/documentation/windows-pssetloadi...

And this details the workaround:

https://breakingmalware.com/documentation/windows-pssetloadi...

What I'd like to know (and lack the ability to figure out for myself) is whether other antivirus products implement the same kind of workaround as Windows Defender, i.e., calling FltGetFileNameInformationUnsafe etc.

Re: DHS Issues BOD Banning Kaspersky from Federal Government

#20

None of the following is confirmed, but I keep seeing articles online hinting around this, or implying this. Essentially it sounds like is known in classified circles that Kaspersky works closely with and supports Russian Intelligence (FSB). It seems while the US knew about this it had a spy within Kaspersky and was their source for finding out what they were up to. The accused spy was arrested by the FSB recently so…

You're making a very big leap from 'Russia arrested someone and charged him with treason' to 'That person was actually a US spy' and even 'The arrest of this person who was actually a US spy is the driver behind a particular US policy'. We just don't have any reasonable insight into why Russia arrests people and what, if anything, they're guilty of.
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