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Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

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Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#91

Post by thrawnjuxt »

rwz wrote: post #45

At this point you just assume that any sufficiently large company based in Russia with capabilities of misusing their power in a way to profit Russian state government will be coerced into doing so or go out of business at some point. Russian thugs have no issues applying pressure till the victim collapses or agrees to cooperate even against their interests. I lived in Russia for 25 years and I saw that happen many t…

Should we be afraid of tools like Intellij as well? I have been looking into Kotlin, and really like it so far, but the idea of a backdoor getting added to my apps by the compiler of the language is straight out of a nightmare.

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#92

Post by adamnemecek »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #77
adamnemecek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they collaborate with the Russian gov't secret services.

You mean you can't even stand their mere existence even without ever actually touching any of their products? Note that I'm not asking why you're not installing their antivirus, I'm asking why you don't want them to exist ...

I don’t because they are collaborating with a fundamentally dictatorial gov’t.

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#93

Post by WillReplyfFood »

rwz wrote: post #45

At this point you just assume that any sufficiently large company based in Russia with capabilities of misusing their power in a way to profit Russian state government will be coerced into doing so or go out of business at some point. Russian thugs have no issues applying pressure till the victim collapses or agrees to cooperate even against their interests. I lived in Russia for 25 years and I saw that happen many t…

Yeah, remember what they did to lavabit.

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#94

Post by WillReplyfFood »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #58
wallace_f wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it does happen here as well(1,2). 1- https://theintercept.com/2017/10/10/recordings-capture-bruta... 2- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/08/lavabit-e... 3- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

How is the Lavabit case an instance of the government misusing its power? The government got a court order to monitor the metadata of an account of a user that they had probable cause to link to a crime. (The alleged criminal had already admitted to the crime.) Lavabit had previously complied with search warrants to obtain data for users suspected of dealing in child pornography. https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Mar…

Is there even one request denied for a court oder?

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#95

Post by Bendingo »

openasocket wrote: post #25
DiabloD3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically. I've seen what now looks like state sponsored bullshit blogs posing as tin foil hatters being posted to HN saying Kaspersky is part of the Russian intelligence apparatus, and that's why the US government pressured stores to remove Kaspersky AV from store shelves, etc etc etc. Most likely, they did their job, and they did it correctly. The NSA can't really defeat competent AV researchers who aren't even loo…

Kaspersky is pretty well known to have a close relationship with the Russian government, though. Hell, Kaspersky himself used to work for Soviet military intelligence. There's several articles cited here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab#Allegations_of_t... I'm not saying Kaspersky is a part of the Russian intelligence apparatus, but I wouldn't trust them to report on Fancy Bear campaigns, nor would I trus…

> Kaspersky himself used to work for Soviet military intelligence

This is straight up not true. He studied at an institute that was administered by the KGB.

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#96

Post by nl »

_m96l wrote: post #34

Kaspersky has been known to collaborate with the Russian government and promote Russian interest. They've actively pursued state actors that are hostile to Russian interest, for example The Equation Group ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_Group ), which wouldn't be an organic part of the function or activities of a normal civilian cyber-security company. Such an "innocent" company would have no reason to get i…

for example The Equation Group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_Group), which wouldn't be an organic part of the function or activities of a normal civilian cyber-security company.

While your basic point might be correct, this part is absolutely false. All major security groups actively research all APT groups, no matter where they are from.

For example, here's a 2015 report from (US Company) FireEye[1]. Page 11 talks about the Equation Group (as well as the UK-based Regin group).

It is worth acknowledging that Kaspersky was the first company to identify and name the Equation Group. However, this is likely to be because of the geographical overlap of activities: Kaspersky provides defensive support in Russia and the Middle East where the Equation Group is most active.

This is exactly the same as how Mandiant/Fireeye identified ATP-1 and Cozy Bear/Fancy Bear: they get called in to investigate breaches in the US where those state-supported groups are most active.

[1] https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/company/even...

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#97

Post by [deleted] »

rwz wrote: post #45

At this point you just assume that any sufficiently large company based in Russia with capabilities of misusing their power in a way to profit Russian state government will be coerced into doing so or go out of business at some point. Russian thugs have no issues applying pressure till the victim collapses or agrees to cooperate even against their interests. I lived in Russia for 25 years and I saw that happen many t…

[deleted]

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#98

Post by threeseed »

thrawnjuxt wrote: post #91
rwz wrote: post #45

At this point you just assume that any sufficiently large company based in Russia with capabilities of misusing their power in a way to profit Russian state government will be coerced into doing so or go out of business at some point. Russian thugs have no issues applying pressure till the victim collapses or agrees to cooperate even against their interests. I lived in Russia for 25 years and I saw that happen many t…

Should we be afraid of tools like Intellij as well? I have been looking into Kotlin, and really like it so far, but the idea of a backdoor getting added to my apps by the compiler of the language is straight out of a nightmare.

Just decompile your built JAR files and go through the source code yourself if you're worried.

http://www.benf.org/other/cfr/

Also JetBrains is based in Czech Republic not Russia.

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#99

Post by threeseed »

harry8 wrote: post #59

Israel (Mossad?) can hack something in Russia, see tools and recognise those tools as top secret NSA gear. Do you wonder how they made that recognition? Were they shared with Israel so they knew, in which case the source could have been Israel being hacked, right? Or they knew because hacking the NSA is something multiple nation states have done. I'd be completely amazed if the NSA wasn't absolutely full of spies act…

Israel is listed as an "observer" in the Five Eyes alliance.

So yes it's quite likely that the US et al have shared assets with them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

Re: Israel Hacked Kaspersky, Then Tipped NSA Its Tools Had Been Breached

#100

Post by AtlasLion »

foxhedgehog wrote: post #88
geowwy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that is because Russia and China don't feel very secure compared to the US for various historical/geopolitical reasons. The US govt is known to act ruthlessly when it feels there's an existential threat.

As a Ukrainian Jew, the idea that Russia doesn't act as, if not more, ruthlessly than the U.S. is pretty laughable.

As an Arab Muslim, the idea that the US is any better is laughable.
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