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Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

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Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#171

Post by KronisLV »

the_snooze wrote: post #33

Is there any point in using antivirus these days anyway? I'm open to being wrong here, but I'm under the impression that antivirus exists only to tick boxes in outdated security compliance checklists. How big of a threat are viruses compared to, say, rogue antivirus products themselves?

It surprises me how much many posters on Hacker News seem to be against using any sort of AV software - not even the built in Defender solution in Windows, if you have to use the OS for whatever reason, but i often see the sentiment expressed that supposedly the entire class of software is useless.

What happened to defense in depth with all of the layers you can introduce?

Surely if you run a Linux server, you might want a secure password for it, or better yet, key based authentication. Port knocking? Why not, throw it in there as another layer. Maybe deny authentication on an IP range basis? Why not. What about fail2ban or some other solution like that to disallow brute forcing? Sure. Or maybe require using a VPN to connect to it at all? Even better! Actually, even running your SSH server on a non-standard port will be enough to get rid of some attempts to brute force the password.

Sure, key based auth makes many of those moot points so i probably have the order of some of those steps wrong, but surely there's a lot of merit in combining whatever solutions you can to make the end result more secure, right? Hell, if you're running a web service of some sort or an application for yourself, adding basicauth in front of it at a web server level is enough to act as a safety net should the auth functionality of the actual application be broken, until you patch it.

So why should Windows be any different? If i'm stuck using that OS, i'd surely want to use whatever software is available to me to make the uphill battle towards something vaguely secure more doable, no?

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#172

Post by kergonath »

confiq wrote: post #100
MattGaiser wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the country. Unlike Russia, the government in the USA is not all powerful.

except when it comes to force companies out of the USA because of "security reasons". I think Russia is using similar tactics, does it?

“That guy who killed someone is not that bad, because the other guy punched someone and everybody seems happy with that”.

Bullshit. The US is an imperialist, sometimes oppressive pseudo-democracy, but nothing like that mafia-run kleptocracy.

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#173

Post by [deleted] »

mardifoufs wrote: post #166
dragontamer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try saying the words "Ukraine War" in Russia. That alone is grounds for getting arrested, possibly disappeared and/or tortured. You have to say "Ukrainian Special Security Operation".

This is from the first article I came across on the RT front page right now: >Moscow attacked neighboring Ukraine last month, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within th…

[deleted]

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#175

Post by dragontamer »

mardifoufs wrote: post #166
dragontamer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try saying the words "Ukraine War" in Russia. That alone is grounds for getting arrested, possibly disappeared and/or tortured. You have to say "Ukrainian Special Security Operation".

This is from the first article I came across on the RT front page right now: >Moscow attacked neighboring Ukraine last month, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within th…

RT is the propaganda arm of the Russian government operating in other countries.

Internal newspapers, such as Novaya Gazeta, have been shut down for saying "war" in print. Just the latest in many papers, radio channels and more that have been silenced in Russia.

> It doesn't seem like they are afraid of getting disappeared for saying russia attacked ukraine.

They didn't use the word "war".

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#176

Post by rat9988 »

devwastaken wrote: post #169
cf141q5325 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldnt i have the same concerns with software from the US? You dont really have to nationalize to force devs to push malicious code (looking at you Australia)

Russia can do it without any backlash from their citizens. U.S. can't do it to their own citizens without backlash. Differences in representation of population means different incentives.

The only backlash I saw is the backlash to snowden from its own country.

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#177

Post by mrkramer »

layer8 wrote: post #161
mrkramer wrote: post #137

Kaspersky has a very good research team which uncovered a lot of APT hacking groups including Russian ones so I don't see a reason why would they be a threat. But on the other hand Russian state can force them to snoop files and traffic from their clients but I doubt that will happen because everyone would stop using them and they would go bankrupt. Imo US government should use domestic antivirus solutions.

> I doubt that will happen because everyone would stop using them and they would go bankrupt. The Russian state might not care a lot about that possible consequence and still coerce them to include malware in the next update.

EU, US and their allies can kick Kaspersky off the market. It would be a game over for Kaspersky meaning zero installs(licenses) and zero revenue. It is not worth to do it not even in the short term. Trust would be forever lost.

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#178

Post by larrik »

KronisLV wrote: post #171
the_snooze wrote: post #33

Is there any point in using antivirus these days anyway? I'm open to being wrong here, but I'm under the impression that antivirus exists only to tick boxes in outdated security compliance checklists. How big of a threat are viruses compared to, say, rogue antivirus products themselves?

It surprises me how much many posters on Hacker News seem to be against using any sort of AV software - not even the built in Defender solution in Windows, if you have to use the OS for whatever reason, but i often see the sentiment expressed that supposedly the entire class of software is useless. What happened to defense in depth with all of the layers you can introduce? Surely if you run a Linux server, you might…

> What happened to defense in depth with all of the layers you can introduce?

What happened was antivirus itself became your biggest attack vector, so you were more secure without it. Plus Microsoft actually cares about security now, which wasn't the case 10+ years ago.

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#179

Post by rat9988 »

temp8964 wrote: post #121
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden's leaks showed that the NSA was simply ignoring the 4th Amendment, and that the secret FISA court was letting the NSA do so. Theoretically, the Constitution protects you. In reality, the intelligence community acts largely in secret, and there's very little preventing them from violating the Bill of Rights. Citizens don't even know what rights they've given up until someone like Snowden spills the beans.

No. You need to understand what you are comparing to. The question is comparing US and Russia. No. It’s not the same. But you turned this question into comparing US to perfection. Yes, you are right. US is not perfection. But there is a big difference between 70 to 10, even both are not 100. What Snowden revealed does not make 70 to 10. If you think that way, you don’t understand how bad an authoritarian regime is.

I put both russia and us at 10. Why would I rate it any better, given its past?

Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC

#180

Post by guelo »

KronisLV wrote: post #171
the_snooze wrote: post #33

Is there any point in using antivirus these days anyway? I'm open to being wrong here, but I'm under the impression that antivirus exists only to tick boxes in outdated security compliance checklists. How big of a threat are viruses compared to, say, rogue antivirus products themselves?

It surprises me how much many posters on Hacker News seem to be against using any sort of AV software - not even the built in Defender solution in Windows, if you have to use the OS for whatever reason, but i often see the sentiment expressed that supposedly the entire class of software is useless. What happened to defense in depth with all of the layers you can introduce? Surely if you run a Linux server, you might…

what happened was the security industry proved over and over again that it cant be trusted. most windows recommendations i see say to use defender since Microsoft already owns you
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