US officials are being increasingly public about their hostility toward “all things Russian” lately, and that growing paranoia has now turned the US government’s attention toward Kaspersky Lab, a large, Moscow-based software company popular for its anti-virus software.
Anti-virus software is big business, and in independent testing Kaspersky is almost always in top two, or top three, and often the number one. That’s made them among the most popular anti-virus solutions in America, for consumers, businesses, and government agencies.
A secret memorandum has been making the rounds in the US government warning that if the Russian government has ties with Kaspersky, and if they were able to do so, they might conceivably use the popularity of the anti-virus software to do something to the US.
That’s a lot of “ifs,” of course, and as is so often the case there appears to be no evidence of any such plot. Indeed, the whole thing appears based on Kaspersky Lab being a Russian company, and one time in 2009 when Kaspersky invited then-President Dmitry Medvedev to their Moscow office.
Founder Eugene Kaspersky is of course denying any wrongdoing, noting that the Russian government would need warrants to get customer data, and that there is virtually no relationship between the company and the government.
All of the talk about the plot appears to be flights of fancy, Marco Rubio and others pushing for a blanket ban on the federal government’s use of Kaspersky products, with some presenting Kaspersky’s high quality and modest cost as though that was itself sign that they must be up to no good.
The lack of evidence didn’t stop the scare-mongering, with officials noting that water treatment plants and a lot of local governments run Kaspersky software, with former NSA Director Keith Alexander urging them to stop. Not that it’s bad software, because it’s not. Because it’s Russian.
The REAL problem is of course that Microsoft has become rich by foisting closed-source, patent-encumbered, badly-designed-but-first-to-market, shiny-shiny consumer-oriented RicketyOS with the worse-than-toxic-sewage “Internet Explorer” preinstalled to World&Dog, so that “antivirus” (a bandaid at the best of times) has become some kind of necessity in both enterprise and at home. And the “quality” of the offers in that niche is nothing to write home about either.
Just more clueless users with an extraordinarily inflated sense of entitlement. Chest puffing and all.
“Reboot your computer.
No I don’t care about your dog’s issues and Kaspersky is actually anti virus software and not a conspiracy theory. Yes, you’re welcome.”
Have a wonderful day
Are there products available for retail PC’s or even MAC computers?
I own a MAC, if I feel the need to buy anti virus SW, I’d love to buy from them if they serve this market.
Having installed Kaspersky on client machines in the past, I can say that, at least at that time (six years ago), it was a bit of a dog on memory use and update reliability and eventually I dumped it for AVG (a good brand for home users as it’s free for them), but otherwise this article is correct – it’s usually in the top three for malware detection. The idea that it could be used to subvert anyone is ridiculous.
That said, ANY anti-virus could conceivably become a threat if it has bugs in it – and all of them do. But the likelihood of it being used by a government to do something bad without being detected is close to zero. And the likelihood of Kaspersky being forced by the Russia government to do something bad is even less.