Kaspersky's American Dream Threatened by US Government Crackdown

[tao]

[An informative article:]  Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of the Russian cyber-security software firm that bears his name, had a big American dream.

 

He wanted his company to go beyond selling antivirus software to consumers and small businesses and become a major vendor to the US government - one of the world's biggest buyers of cyber-security tools.

 

Kaspersky set up a US subsidiary, KGSS, in Arlington, Virginia that would be focused on winning that business. He sponsored flashy conferences with high-profile speakers -including Michael Flynn, who was briefly President Donald Trump's national security adviser - sought to join US trade groups and even underwrote programming on National Public Radio.

 

All of this was done to burnish Kaspersky's image and help it become an accepted vendor for the US government despite its Russian roots, according to people familiar with the strategy.

 

But Eugene Kaspersky was never able to overcome lingering suspicions among US intelligence officials that he and his company were, or could become, pawns of Russia's spy agencies. Kaspersky "has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts," the company said.

 

Kaspersky's American ambitions were further eroded by the sharp deterioration in US-Russia relations following Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and later when US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had hacked the 2016 US presidential election.

 

Testifying before the US Congress in May, US intelligence chiefs for the first time publicly expressed doubt that Kaspersky products could be trusted.

 

FBI agents last month interviewed Kaspersky employees, asking whether they reported to Russia-based executives and how much data from American customers could be seen by Russian employees, according to three current and former employees. The FBI declined to comment on Thursday.

 

On Tuesday, the US General Services Administration, the government agency that manages the federal bureaucracy, removed Kaspersky from a list of approved vendors, saying GSA's mission was to ensure the security of US government systems.

 

There is also a bill before Congress that would explicitly bar the Defense Department from using any Kaspersky products.

 

Kaspersky says his company is being targeted for political reasons.

 

"These reckless actions negatively impact global cyber-security by limiting competition, slowing down technology innovations and ruining the industry and law enforcement agency cooperation required to catch the bad guys," he said in a statement to Reuters.

 

The Arlington offices of KGSS were empty when a Reuters reporter visited them on Thursday. A Kaspersky spokeswoman said most of the staff, which number less than 10, often work from home.

 

The US clampdown comes even though officials have offered no public evidence to suggest the company has done anything untoward or that the Russian government is using its software to launch cyber-attacks.

 

Two former employees and a person briefed on the FBI case told Reuters that Kaspersky software has at times inappropriately inspected and removed files from users' machines in its hunt for alleged cyber criminals, even when those files were not corrupted by viruses.

 

"Kaspersky Lab believes it is completely unacceptable that the company is being unjustly accused without any hard evidence to back up these false allegations," the Kaspersky spokeswoman said in response in an email.

 

Unusual step
It is extremely rare for a company to be singled out for federal buying restrictions in the absence of clear evidence of wrongdoing.

 

"This sets a really dangerous precedent" where other nations could make similar, unsubstantiated claims against US vendors, said Robert M. Lee, a former cyberwarfare operative for US intelligence and now CEO of cyber-security startup Dragos.

 

The Russian government has denounced the Kaspersky crackdown and said it does not rule out retaliatory measures. Officials at US tech companies with significant operations in Russia say they fear they could become targets.

 

Federal contracting databases reviewed by Reuters show only a few hundred thousand dollars in purchases from Kaspersky, and an employee confirmed the company's federal government revenue was "miniscule."

 

But Kaspersky also sells to federal contractors and third-party software companies that incorporate its technology in their products, so its technology may be more widely used in government than it appears from the contracting databases, US officials say.

 

Founded in 1997, Kaspersky grew rapidly through the 2000s to become one of the world's leading anti-virus software companies.

 

But the company was dogged from the start by suspicions about its ties to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the KGB. Eugene Kaspersky attended a KGB school and the company has acknowledged doing work for the FSB.

 

As the company grew, Kaspersky was determined to overcome those fears.

 

"We have to be more American than Americans," Kaspersky told Reuters in 2013, when a US goodwill offensive began.

 

"Public shaming"
A cornerstone of the effort was a series of KGSS-hosted conferences in Washington where prominent US officials including Flynn, a former Defense Intelligence Agency director, former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden and House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul discussed cyber-security issues.

 

The company privately courted US intelligence and law enforcement officials by sending experts to brief them on nation-state hacking campaigns uncovered by the firm, according to people present at those meetings.

 

"They came to us and said, 'We want to change our image, we know people don't trust us'," said one former senior Obama administration official who took part in some of those meetings.

 

But the suspicions never subsided. When the company sought to join one Washington-based technology trade organization, it was "politely told it couldn't happen," according to an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter.

 

The source said industry group officials had an inside joke: "Kaspersky (membership) is like having the Kremlin join."

 

Not coincidentally, Kaspersky's government sales effort never gained traction. In an email to Reuters, the company noted "complexities associated with doing business with North America's government sector."

 

Privately held Kaspersky said its US revenue, most of which comes from selling antivirus software to consumers and small businesses, slipped from $164 million in 2014 to about $156 million in 2016.

 

Some US national security experts say Kaspersky is being treated unfairly. Lee said he has long been bothered by the "public shaming" of Kaspersky by people who make allegations without presenting evidence.

 

The US government has the right to choose not to use Kaspersky products for any reason, he said, but "the way they are doing it" is wrong.

 

"I don't believe in geographic restrictions that say, 'Because Kaspersky is a Russian-based company, therefore it is bad,'" said former White House cyber-security policy coordinator Michael Daniel. "You would want your decision to be based on actual corporate bad behavior."

 

< Here >

[knowledge-Spammer]

Some US national security experts say Kaspersky is being treated unfairly. Lee said he has long been bothered by the "public shaming" of Kaspersky by people who make allegations without presenting evidence.

 

very much unfairly i think

 

[knowledge-Spammer]

this man is bs talk

but the man at the end seems to understand

[straycat19]

Kaspersky is a victim of the cold war.  That is just how things are in the world today.  What matters now is how he handles it and whether his software will be banned nationwide in the U.S.  

[knowledge-Spammer]

9 hours ago, straycat19 said:

Kaspersky is a victim of the cold war.  That is just how things are in the world today.  What matters now is how he handles it and whether his software will be banned nationwide in the U.S.  

lets look at norton  and its backdoor ?

now Kaspersky  no backdoor and maybe banned nationwide in the U.S ?

so backdoors are ok   but Kaspersky   not

 

[tao]

< Deleted >

[Sylence]

Maybe Kaspersky's road map conflicts with the NSA's and their backdoors won't work properly with Kaspersky installed on the systems

[steven36]

 

Quote

 

Channeling Security: Kaspersky PR Problems Raise Questions – and Opportunities

 

The drumbeat of charges of collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia aren’t helping Kaspersky Lab, which faces its own problems over ongoing allegations that it’s complicit with Kremlin foreign intelligence and espionage operations (see Larry Walsh’s take on that here).

 

A new round of publicity from Bloomberg this week, along with confirmation Tuesday to Politico that the General Services Administration has removed Kaspersky from the approved list of vendors for two government-wide purchasing contracts, added fuel and pushed the controversy into the mainstream media, with a fairly sensationalized report by ABC, complete with a sweeping drone’s eye view of the company’s headquarters and a shot of CEO Eugene Kaspersky standing near Vladimir Putin.

 

Kaspersky strongly denies any wrongdoing, saying that “Kaspersky Lab, and its executives, do not have inappropriate ties with any government.”

 

How should you respond if asked about the matter?

 

First, note that Kaspersky Lab has technology licensing agreements with more than 120 providers, including AWS, Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft and dozens of security firms that license the antivirus SDK. It’s not a simple matter of swapping in a new AV provider.

 

From a purely technology perspective, Kaspersky products have historically performed well in terms of endpoint antimalware efficacy, and have been used around the world for years with few issues.

 

“I advise resellers to stay the course,” says Eric Parizo, senior analyst focusing on enterprise security with analysis firm GlobalData. “Eugene Kaspersky simply could not have built and sustained such a successful company, and one highly regarded within the global cybersecurity community, by serving as a close ally of the Russian government.”

 

Parizo advises partners to remind customers that the caliber of the products, and the employees making and supporting them, remain unchanged despite the negative publicity.

 

“The Kaspersky GSA delisting is an overreaction caused by a Washington government and media landscape that is hyperfocused on any individual or entity with ties to Russia,” he adds.

 

 

Platte River Networks saw a similar politically motivated uproar earlier this year.

 

Kaspersky is moving ahead with product news. This week it released a new version of its Endpoint Security Cloud, a multi-tenant console for partners and MSPs overseeing customer cloud infrastructures remotely. The new release includes support for Macs and additional automation and management capabilities. Customers who still think Macs are immune to malware are wrong; last year, Kaspersky Lab detected 11.8 million attacks, including MacOS-specific malware, OS-agnostic phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks that affect Apple users. For MSPs, there’s improved billing and reporting and integration with ConnectWise’s Manage and Automate tools.

 

This month Kaspersky also released a free open-source forensic tool, BitScout, that investigators can use to remotely collect evidence. It allows for full-disk-image acquisition, even with untrained staff, and provides other useful functions, like remote AV scanning and remediation of offline systems and network nodes.

 

Still, the drumbeat of criticism raises the question of how partners handle it when bad PR around suppliers reaches customers.

 

The No. 1 piece of advice from channel leaders: Don’t rush into a decision to weaken or break ties with a longtime supplier over what may end up being a short-term distraction. If the provider has good products, a profitable channel program with strong enablement tools and isn’t competing with a direct sales force, see how it handles the PR storm.

 

 

What to watch for:

• Is the company being transparent with partners and customers? Kaspersky has released definitive statements refuting recent allegations.
• Is there any fire behind the smoke? As Walsh notes, CEO Eugene Kaspersky received his security training in Russian intelligence, and many of the managers at Kaspersky Lab are former Russian military or have held government positions. And Kaspersky Lab does work with the Russian government on security issues. The GSA delisting is a real issue for partners that work with government agencies or their suppliers.
• How fired up are your customers? That’s the primary relationship, and there are readily available alternatives security suites. Still, as noted, removing all Kaspersky Lab code isn’t a simple matter.

 

Partners build customer relationships by solving problems, so Parizo suggests keeping an eye on the long-term findings while making the best of the situation.

“If anything, the short-term business disruption for Kaspersky presents an opportunity [to] potentially negotiate discounted licensing additions or renewals that customers should not hesitate to take advantage of,” he says.

 

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/blog/channeling-security-kaspersky-pr-problems-raise-questions-and-opportunities/

 

[mikie]

Bottom line is the majority of American's truly within the depths of their minds do believe in buy American products as first choice, but don't always pull out that thought with selection of products.  But it does add consideration at times. 

[steven36]

22 minutes ago, adi said:

Trudeau tells US governors to ditch 'America First'

Do you think posting PR like this is going make Trump change his stance on this, isn't this  why his supporters  elected  him? If he don't keep his word too the American public the most he could hope for is making it  4 years in office  . We are about  2.75 million jobs short  and even if they brought back about half of the jobs from overseas   they would be filled ..  Even Microsoft are cutting jobs overseas but really  hurting Kaspersky you are hurting American jobs.. because the USA employs no one at Russia Kaspersky But MR. Kaspersky employs many people in the US. Without jobs we can't by products from no were.

[steven36]

5 minutes ago, adi said:

Do you think this forum (with all its posts) have any influence on human affairs?

Do you think people post here to try to change other minds?

Methinks, the forums exist to share information, ideas, opinions, and so on.

 

Thanks and Regards!

In a economic sense Trudeau makes no sense, nether do congress .. Typical politics , that keep the poor, poor and the rich, rich. This is security and privacy  and too much topics on this and nothing as changed for better or worse ..There has been no update?

[steven36]

Always you go off topic with silly poems man and I should just reported the topic because you posted on this yesterday unless there is a update you need too keep it in the same topic they should not been but 2 threads on this tell something changes. It's the same news but different opinions is all . Everyone has a right to there opinion but post duping are not permitted.

[Batu69]

Topic merged.

Some contents not related with topic has been removed.

[steven36]

38 minutes ago, adi said:

Please, if possible, don't call a post silly, just because you don't (or make no effort to) understand it.

 

And, I understand, it's not possible always to do what one wants to do or not to make the same mistake a hundred time.  Mistakes make us human, I believe!

 

With respect!

 i didn't report you're  post i just expressed my opinion and he caught it and dont tell me what too say and not say when I have not broke any rules ... Too me it's off topic  and silly and even spam like posting poems like a bot. If you cant talk normal too me and stay on topic i just want answer you back because you lose me when you do this .. This is my opinion of it is all . If they dont care you do it ..I dont care that they let you do it.. but I will not respond  too you in a positive way if you do me like this. You are lucky i will even respond back at all ...I have left many topics when i see this going on even.

 

Some research  on poems on forums out of topic  bring up one thing  poet trolling. 

 

This poet is trolling everyone on Instagram to show how social media glorifies pop poetry

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/poetry/poet-trolling-everyone-instagram-show-social-media-glorifies-pop-poetry/

 

[tao]

< Deleted >

[steven36]

I dont have nothing against you but really they have parts of the boards you could post poems if you like, you can even start a topic over there Poem of the day or something ..I dont be very active over on those parts of the board  but i have posted a few things over in those topics . But when I come too a sub forum I expect too talk about the subject at hand and if it's a clown show going on I leave.

[tao]

< Deleted >

[steven36]

So good bye my friend and no hard feelings .but this has got way off topic because  we are talking about  poetry  and  our feelings and stuff and it just gives me a headache when i can use my time more wisely  to learn a little while i'm surfing the internet .

[tao]

No good buys, please.

We are staying together like brothers here.

Your posts in this thread are very helpful to me in bringing to light my hidden side.

Only a true friend will take the risk (of doing so), my friend!

Much thanks!

 

 

[Sylence]

4 hours ago, steven36 said:

So good bye my friend and no hard feelings .but this has got way off topic because  we are talking about  poetry  and  our feelings and stuff and it just gives me a headache when i can use my time more wisely  to learn a little while i'm surfing the internet .

 

Lovely photo