Posted on 12/18/2017 11:52:58 PM PST by Swordmaker
Kaspersky no longer legal on US public sector networks
President Trump has signed into law an order banning the use of Kaspersky Lab products within US government organisations.
For months, government officials have been clearing the Moscow-based cyber security company's products from the networks of US federal agencies, a task that is now more-or-less completed.
Kaspersky has been accused of allowing its anti-virus software to be used by Russian intelligence to exfiltrate information from the PCs of US government officials, although little evidence has been presented to back-up such claims.
The ban is included in a new defense policy spending bill, which was signed by Trump on Tuesday. it follows a directive in September that gave agencies 90 days to remove Kaspersky software from their networks and systems.
Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic senator who had been upping pressure on the government to ban the software, praised Trump's decision to sign the directive.
"The case against Kaspersky is well-documented and deeply concerning. This law is long overdue," she claimed. She described the company's software as a "grave risk" to America's national security.
Following Trump's decision, Department of Homeland Security cyber official Christopher Krebs said many of the government's agencies had already removed the software.
Kaspersky Lab has denied the allegations, and to distance itself from them it has begun submitting the source code of its products for inspection to third-party organisations - yet nevertheless recently closed its Washington DC sales office.
On Tuesday, the company said it had "serious concerns" over the law "due to its geographic-specific approach to cybersecurity".
Speaking in October, co-founder Eugene Kaspersky said: "Internet balkanisation benefits no one except cybercriminals. Reduced cooperation among countries helps the bad guys in their operations, and public-private partnerships don't work like they should.
"We need to re-establish trust in relationships between companies, governments and citizens. That's why we're launching this Global Transparency Initiative: we want to show how we're completely open and transparent.
He added that the company is ethical in its practices. "We've nothing to hide. And I believe that with these actions we'll be able to overcome mistrust and support our commitment to protecting people in any country on our planet."
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Good. Shouldn’t be on any American’s computer.
Anybody who use Russian or Chinese AV products is just begging for a world of problems.
A good firewall, good AV and Malwarebytes (paid version) will handle pretty much all the nasties.
Never understood the trust in those A-holes...
how dare they do what we probably do with Apple, microsoft, google, amazon, twitter and who’s knows what else.
Of course our Intel CPUs are made in Vietnam, so what else might go wrong?
IMHO, should have been a regulatory policy, instead of a law.
Reminiscent of pre-EPA laws against dioxins and PCBs.
Could have been more easily implemented by DoD Order or Executive Order.
Now it only covers new project funds or O&M dollars.
What does it do to actively seek out existing “sleeping” Kaspersky systems?
It was, but Congress went ahead and passed a law anyway. Gave it more teeth. I gather some agencies were ignoring the orders.
About time. Eugene Kaspersky is a graduate of The Technical Faculty of the KGB Higher School. That software should have never been allowed near anything secret and the fact it was spells incompetence.
In more ways than one - why do we not have programmers capable of securing our own networks????
Worked with folks from NSA while in the military - their programmers kept putting out products that affected our training suites like slow acting viruses - they finally contracted AT&T for some programming and in 2 weeks they produced software that the NSA wonks had screwed up for 2 years....
I have my own theory. I believe in software world it is important to have a certain ratio of very high quality near genius people. They’ll pull others over the obstacles. When something hard comes up a team with that “Ace” will pull through and a team without will just keep running their heads to the wall. Rigid pay scales of military are not friendly of retaining these Aces.
During a high-level conference, they had some GS-15 lady briefing us on how they were going to cut costs by getting rid of dead weight and she projected a 30% cut in certain manning - I couldn't help myself and asked if she really believed that such a high percentage were actually dead weight, and if so, why wan't it obvious from the get-go - and why was the dead weight so entrenched that quality was so bad....her face got red and she stammered some crap but with some of her previous comments and context it appeared she was one of the dead-weighters....
I’ve had Kaspersky for about 7 years, and it’s the best AV software I’ve ever had. Before that I had tried several AV programs and I always ended up with a raging virus after a few years, even with all the updates, some of which were so bad that I had to junk my computer.
I’ve had Kaspersky for about 7 years, and it’s the best AV software I’ve ever had. Before that I had tried several AV programs and I always ended up with a raging virus after a few years, even with all the updates, some of which were so bad that I had to junk my computer.
The military relies on corrupt contractors for most of their SW. That’s part of why it is so expensive and so bad—but at least better than the civilian side of government that is corrupt without actually requiring any standards of delivery.
The military relies on corrupt contractors for most of their SW. That’s part of why it is so expensive and so bad—but at least better than the civilian side of government that is corrupt without actually requiring any standards of delivery.
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