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Biden To Ban US Sales of Kaspersky Software Over Ties To Russia (reuters.com) 123

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
The Biden administration on Thursday will announce plans to bar the sale of Kaspersky Lab's antivirus software in the United States, citing the firm's large U.S. customers including critical infrastructure providers and state and local governments, according to Reuters. From the report: The company's close ties to the Russian government were found to pose a critical risk, the person said, adding that the software's privileged access to a computer's systems could allow it to steal sensitive information from American computers, install malware or withhold critical updates. The sweeping new rule, using broad powers created by the Trump administration, will be coupled with another move to add the company to a trade restriction list, according to two other people familiar with the matter, dealing a blow to the firm's reputation that could hammer its overseas sales.

The plan to add the cybersecurity company to the entity list, which effectively bars a company's U.S. suppliers from selling to it, and the timing and details of the software sales curb, have not been previously reported. Previously, Kaspersky has said that it is a privately managed company with no ties to the Russian government. The moves show the administration is trying to stamp out any risks of Russian cyberattacks stemming from Kaspersky software and keep squeezing Moscow as its war effort in Ukraine has regained momentum and as the United States has run low on fresh sanctions it can impose on Russia.

Biden To Ban US Sales of Kaspersky Software Over Ties To Russia More | Reply

Biden To Ban US Sales of Kaspersky Software Over Ties To Russia

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  • Kaspersky refuses the NSA backdoors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @09:25AM (#64563555)

    Obviously, the US does not like that. As Kaspersky has been under a microscope for some time, it is however exceptionally unlikely they have Russian Backdoors. If anybody had found anything, the news would just have been too juicy to not publish it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's odd that they only targeted Kaspersky, and ignored e.g. Chinese AV products.

      Anyway, Kaspersky offers a free "rescue disc" that is bootable, so makes a decent way to scan your system without needing to install it (or pay for it). You will need to connect to the internet to update the virus database, I'm not sure there is any way around that.

      • They went after TikTok to "get" at China.

        The administration is going to pick random bits of software from each adversary nation, and then declare victory over cyber attacks in a few months.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 )

          You mean they'll post a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner somewhere and then keep claiming they won the cyber war in 4 weeks?

          • The election isn't until November. They have 18 or 19 weeks to show that they have made progress and "have a plan" to combat cyber terrorism and malware and whatever.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Yes, probably. All the while Microsoft and every other US software maker gets hacked and hacked and hacked again due to sheer incompetence.

        • Re: Kaspersky refuses the NSA backdoors (Score:4, Interesting)

          by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @10:45AM (#64563925) Homepage
          They went after Tictok because it is a foreign owned company with enormous propaganda capabilities. After the first announcement, Tictok encouraged users to call their congessional representatives. Some received higher call volume than for any other issue, ever. This only proved the point that Tictok has the capacity to extert tremendous influence. If any other country owned the New York Times, CNN, and Facebook there would be questions too. Tictok is by some measures larger and more influential than those companies put together.
          • if propaganda from a foreign country is working. then its kinda the fault of the country's government for either making the citizens that gullible or maybe its that the what the foreign government is saying is what the people want and the government would rather shut everyone up and not talk about it than deal with it.

    • Kaspersky hasn't put in back doors so far, but a future change could cause a lot of damage before it was discovered and remediated. Do you think that the people running this company would reject a "request" from the Russian government?

      Frankly, I am surprised that it has taken this long for Kaspersky to be sanctioned.

      • Do you think that the people running this company would reject a "request" from the Russian government?

        If they had that option, possibly, even quite likely. However I'm sure there are people working for Kaspersky who would be expert at putting back doors into code if they wanted to be. I'll put it like this. If you knew it was the only way to get your daughter out of an FSB prison, and you had any idea what the FSB do to people, would you think twice before putting a backdoor into code?

        There is no possible way anything important or internet connected with Russian software should be running anywhere in the We

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          There is no possible way anything important or internet connected with Russian software should be running anywhere in the West.

          The same is true for US software. But here we are.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        That is a non-argument. Obviously, Kaspersky continues to be under a microscope and they know it. Hence, yes, it may happen but then they would be found out fast and you would have a point. At this time, you do not.

        • You don't understand my point.

          Let's put it in car terms. Would you leave tires on your car if you know they could blow out? Of course you would be able to fix the tires after a blow out, but your car might be seriously damaged at that point. So you replace the tires as a preventative measure. Similarly, everyone in the West should uninstall and replace Kaspersky now as a preventative measure.

          My point is that a lot of damage would already be done before you could mitigate the issue.

    • I thought Kaspersky was one of the better anti virus / anti malware systems out there.

      And I recall Kaspersky has shifted out of Russia it's international customer's services.

      I think some high profile people from Kaspersky got into trouble with the Russian government.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/t... [forbes.com]

      Am of two minds about Kaspersky software - on the one hand they seem pretty good. On the other, there is some chance that they are linked to Russian government. But assuming they are linked and have stolen data,

      • The question is, are accusations enough to condemn something / someone? Especially when the accusers don't have clean hands in the first place.

        You are talking about a country that attacked and colonized Iraq for 10 years causing the deaths of >100,000 people over "weapons of mass destruction related program activities" - ie some metal tubes with traces of yellow dust and some vials that may have been almost about to possibly contain potential something something anthrax. Oh and please no return questions about our own stockpile of nukes and anthrax - we are America. So yeah we have no actual evidence that Iraq is about to magically attack the U

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        This is similar to Huawei, alot of accusations, but no actual evidence shown.

        The question is, are accusations enough to condemn something / someone? Especially when the accusers don't have clean hands in the first place.

        Yes, quite telling, isn't it? Because we can be sure that if they had evidence, they would show it. With the capabilities of the US government, among them the NSA, we can be sure there is no evidence because they would most certainly have found it and then used it publicly.

        And no, unless you want witch-burnings, an accusation should _never_ be enough.

      • "I thought Kaspersky was one of the better anti virus / anti malware systems out there."

        When AVP was new it was great, really fast and light. Now people commonly call it AVPoo. Not sure why anyone would even want to run it now.

    • Re:Kaspersky refuses the NSA backdoors (Score:4, Informative)

      by WaterFoodEarthCosmos ( 6661530 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @11:00AM (#64563977)
      This is the same company that found Apple had back-doors in the phones with CVE-2023-38606. In parts of the USA around and on a hill there are some people who do not like that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Yes, clearly. The thing the US administration does not like about Kaspersky is that Kaspersky will expose US backdoors.

    • Its not about backdoors. Its about data collection, where the data goes, and who later can get access to that data. Anti-virus/endpoint protection has access to everything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        That is a bogus argument. AV and endpoint protection will _not_ send data back unless you explicitly allow it to. And if it does do so without permission, then that is dead obvious. hence if it did that, it would most assuredly have been found.

    • Obviously, the US does not like that. As Kaspersky has been under a microscope for some time, it is however exceptionally unlikely they have Russian Backdoors. If anybody had found anything, the news would just have been too juicy to not publish it.

      Speaking of people who don’t like that, How many hackers do YOU think are lining up at DEFCON to publish findings that could get them invited to an open window viewing in a Russian high rise?

      Theres a saying that comes to mind about juice and squeeze.

    • > If anybody had found anything, the news would just
      > have been too juicy to not publish it.

      It depends on who found those backdoors and how difficult they are to exploit. The big-brother wannabe shitbags at NSO Group and Cellbrite have backdoors in both iOS and Android. Granted, those are unintentional bugs that they refuse to report, not *actual* backdoors intentionally put in by Apple or Google. But there's really no effective difference.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        It would not have been just one person or group. It would for example, have been the NSA and the US administration would gleefully have paraded the evidence around. Nothing like that ever happened. Same with Huawei. And the NSA would have found backdoors if they were in there.

    • You can bet they didn't refuse the *Russian* government-mandated backdoors.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        You seem to not have understood the discussion at hand. In actual reality there is no way their software has a backdoor. When you know where to look (and in AV the communication channels are _really_ simple) finding a backdoor like that is within reach of a gifted amateur. The US has the NSA and the NSA clearly found nothing or the evidence would have been gleefully paraded around.

        • No way their software has a backdoor? Reminds me of the Solar Winds breach.

          Without access to Kaspersky's servers, how would you even know what data is being sent where, from the server back end? It's not like you can inspect their server-side source code.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            You want to examine the _server_ for backdoors into the _client_? Do you even know what a backdoor is?

            • Yes, absolutely!

              The Solar Winds hack absolutely started on the server side, and was used to insert malware onto clients. https://www.wired.com/story/th... [wired.com]

              Kaspersky's software is structured a lot like Solar Winds. For many use cases, it requires installing agents--with administrative privileges--on every server and desktop that is part of the system. These agents are capable of delivering and executing literally *any* code on that remote machine. So yes, if there's a back door in the server side, that back d

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                That must be peak clueless. No, that is _not_ a backdoor. Fucking get the _basics_ right!

                • Apparently you don't know either, because if you did, you'd explain it to me, since I'm so clueless!

                  What makes a back door a back door? According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

                  A backdoor is a typically covert method of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer, product, or embedded device. ...Backdoors are most often used for securing remote access to a computer...to gain access to privileged information like passwords, corrupt or delete data on hard drives, or transfer information.

                  The Solar Winds hack certainly meets all these criteria, and if the Russians mandated secret access to Kaspersky's back end servers, they would certainly have the ability to do all these things to client computers "bypassing normal authentication" for whatever purposes they want.

                  Now, tell me again what part of this d

    • Obviously, the US does not like that. As Kaspersky has been under a microscope for some time, it is however exceptionally unlikely they have Russian Backdoors. If anybody had found anything, the news would just have been too juicy to not publish it.

      You have evidence that other antivirus companies do allow NSA backdoors?

      Anyways, I doubt they'd be clumsy enough to leave backdoors in current Kaspersky, but there's still a lot of potential threats.

      One, Kapersky self-updates. That means if Moscow does get desperate they can start using that to push exploits, they could either do it to select machines as part of a high risk hack (hopefully covering their tracks after), or to entire countries as a major cyberattack.

      Second, it will automatically send back inf [arstechnica.com]

  • Do Epic next (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RegistrationIsDumb83 ( 6517138 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @09:43AM (#64563627)
    If you don't think the Tencent owned kernel rootkit known as Easy Anticheat has a back door, you're naive.

  • Can we Please wait for AGI before WWIII? (Score:3)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @09:46AM (#64563637)
    This is a sign that if anything the Ukraine conflict is planned to escalate not wind down. I've seen some articles that WWIII has already started or set in motion and that would be the ultimate shame if some conflict escalation cut off progress toward AGI/ASI in the bud.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      I've not really seen any evidence AI researchers want AGI. Statistical analysers and Expert Systems are fashionable and profitable, especially if the software vendor owns shares in nVidua.

  • Liars (Score:5, Informative)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @09:58AM (#64563687) Homepage

    Previously, Kaspersky has said that it is a privately managed company with no ties to the Russian government.

    Bloody liars [rferl.org]: "Kaspersky Complies With Kremlin Blacklist As Other VPN Services Remain Defiant".

    "We have no ties to the Russian government except that we do whatever they ask us to do."

  • Why did anyone ever trust them? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @10:03AM (#64563719)
    The sheer ignorance and negligence it would take to trust a Russian company with cybersecurity, Jesus. Even before Putin.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I worked for a government contracting company a while ago where the corporate lead IT support guy insisted on using Kaspersky and nothing else. I wanted to be fair of course, but just didn't get the insistence for that Russian option over consideration of other options.

    • The sheer ignorance and negligence it would take to trust a Russian company with cybersecurity, Jesus. Even before Putin.

      You know how US Government has been “cool” with Tik Tok?

      Now you know how Kapersky got here.

      Doesn’t have to make sense as long as makes cents.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      To be fair, Norton, AVG, and Microsoft's tools are useless and resource intensive. If their idea of antivirus is to simply stop the computer running anything else, I suppose it works. Kinda.

      There just aren't any really good antivirus systems any more.

      • AV has been dead since 2008. With the advent of obfuscated real time 0 minute binaries, the definition AV model died with it. That's why I laugh at most of these AV comparison studies that throw thousands of ancient binaries at an AV product and rank them based on their detection of them that were added to a definition file after it infected tens of thousands of PC's over a week period two years ago and was long abandoned from it's creator because they already got paid by all of the ransom extortions and ma

  • Russia's a fully rogue state (Score:5, Informative)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @10:06AM (#64563735)

    They invade neighbors, assassinate people on foreign soil using extremely dangerous methods that harm more than just their intended target, and they actively try to disrupt democratic nations.

    You can argue the US does all those things too... Well, not so much the 'assassinate with nerve toxins with plenty of collateral damage', but you can still generally work with the US. Russia's a mafia state in collapse and looking for new victims to prop itself up.

    Nobody should be doing any business with Russia until they're out of Ukraine, have admitted they're in the wrong (to undo domestic propaganda that helped make the invasion of Ukraine possible), and paying reparations. Putin's head on a pike would be a nice bonus to put a fear of consequences into his successor, but it's optional.

    • > and paying reparations

      No. Not paying reparations... PAID reparations!

      As in... Ukraine must be made whole; not just the stolen land returned, but all of the damage repaired, anything destroyed rebuilt or paid for at full market value, everything stolen returned or paid for at full market value, medical bills paid for every Ukrainian injured, compensation for every Ukrainian crippled, funeral expenses and compensation paid to the families of every Ukrainian killed, and an ironclad guarantee that no Russ

    • The CIA used to do assassinations until Congress put a stop to it. And they still do assassination if it is part of a 'military action'.
      Now for eventually ending the conflict you will need negotiations. Everyone hates Putin but you will not end this war without realistic negotiations.
      For all those who look to history and yell 'Never appease a dictator' Chamberlain!
      How did reparations work out for Germany after WWI?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Alain Williams ( 2972 )

      As is Israel. The UN, amongst others, says that it has likely ‘consistently violated’ Laws of war [un.org]. So the USA should stop sending it weapons.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by linuxguy ( 98493 )

      Agreed. Russia is operating as a proper terrorist state at the moment. Has a leader who removed term limits and cannot be voted out. Invaded a country that did not attack them and then proceeded to destroyed many of their cities and killed hundreds of thousand of people. For reasons no sane person understands.

      Since world war ii, we have lived in relative safety where no country has tried to change national borders through the use of force. No country except one. Russians are trying hard to drag humani

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        >No country except one.

        Are you referring to North Korea, or to North Viet Nam?

        Or . . . .

  • If this is what it takes to heal the partisan divide then I guess it's necessary, patriotism got us here, we don't have time for rational solutions, so patriotism might get us out... and in a few decades it will turn into nationalism and the cycle continues.
  • will be inconsolable.

    I feel bad for Kaspersky though. Or at least their employees (can't remember the owner's stance on thigns). It's not like they have any say in anything, Russia is a dictatorship, they're all just screwed because one 78 year old man decided he wanted one last shot at glory for Mother Russia.

    This is why dictator's suck, even if you think they're cool. Sooner or later they get old and lose it. And you can't get rid of 'em until they die. So you're just stuck with Mad King George.

    • I feel bad for Kaspersky though. Or at least their employees (can't remember the owner's stance on thigns). It's not like they have any say in anything, Russia is a dictatorship, they're all just screwed because one 78 year old man decided he wanted one last shot at glory for Mother Russia.

      Of course the Russian population has a say and until now their choice is to support the dictator and his war. No dictator can survive a mass revolution. I know because I live in a former communist country who went trough a bloody revolution,

  • Cool! cheaper Karspesky for us! (Score:3)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @12:28PM (#64564289)

    I live in LatAm. Most of us in LatAm do not care if the FSB spies on us instead of the CIA (or the MI5, or the five eyes, or the chinese). Probably similar sentiment in Africa, ME, SE asia and other places.

    What we want is to keep viruses and ransomware out of our systems (both desktop and server, both Windows and Linux, both physical and virtual). Also keep attacks from hacking groups and State backed actors out.

    For that, we want the best perf/cost ratio. Karspesky products are very decent. And cover all the aforementioned areas.

    If Karpesky loses access to the USoA market, it will probably have to lower prices, to capture more money elsewhere.

    As long as your company's threat model is not affected by rusia spying on you, or having a reason to hack you directly, or indirectly throug affiliated hacking groups, a very good tool is about to get much cheaper...

    Thanks

    JM2C, YMMV

  • Meh - its crap software anyway. I wouldn't trust it to scan my lawnmower......

  • For a second I thought they were talking about TikTok.....

  • Blamake Kaspersky.
    Blame China.

    The number one abuser of your right to private is the USA government.

    Each year they make it a point to re-approve the sections of law that allow them to keep doing it.
    Even when the law does NOT allow them to do it, they (FBI, NSA, CIA) do it

    How are we better than Russia, North Korea, China, Turkey, Iran?

    We're not.

    Downvote away. Speaking truth is the only power we have left. Sucking up to the government is just being a loser.

    • > Russia, North Korea, China, Turkey, Iran?

      I'm no fan of American politics nor it's legal system, but if you can't tell that it's far better than those five you need to get your head examined.

      I would never willingly move to the US, but if I had to choose between those six there's no question it'd be the US.

  • Its about time they closed that hole.
  • and this is what they get.

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