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posted by martyb on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the prudence-or-paranoia? dept.

The Washington Post is reporting U.S. moves to ban Kaspersky software in federal agencies amid concerns of Russian espionage:

Acting Homeland Security secretary Elaine Duke ordered that Kaspersky Lab software be barred from federal civilian government networks, giving agencies a timeline to get rid of it, according to several officials familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Duke ordered the scrub on the grounds that the company has connections to the Russian government and its software poses a security risk.

[...] "The risk that the Russian government, whether acting on its own or in collaboration with Kaspersky, could capitalize on access provided by Kaspersky products to compromise federal information and information systems directly implicates U.S. national security."

[...] The directive comes months after the federal General Services Administration, the agency in charge of government purchasing, removed Kaspersky from its list of approved vendors. In doing so, the GSA suggested a vulnerability exists in Kaspersky that could give the Kremlin backdoor access to the systems the company protects.

Someone that is in a position to know all about it tells me that Kaspersky doesn't detect malware created by the Russian Business Network. My fear is that if I named that someone, the RBN will give that someone a bad hair day.

[Ed. addition follows]

The full text of the DHS notice is available at https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/09/13/dhs-statement-issuance-binding-operational-directive-17-01.

Previously:
FBI Reportedly Advising Companies to Ditch Kaspersky Apps.


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:10PM (1 child)

    by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:10PM (#567766)

    ClamAV isn't too great, its generally too far behind the curve for me. If you're using it for mail filtering though check into this: https://github.com/extremeshok/clamav-unofficial-sigs [github.com]

    It's the only reason ClamAV is worth bothering with on a mail system.

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  • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:20PM

    by pTamok (3042) on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:20PM (#567805)

    Thanks for that. I know ClamAV doesn't tick all the boxes, but as I said in another posting, it might be a useful addition to other malware detection software. It's free, and might be worth the time needed to set it up.