Recently, we have reported several claims (here, here, and here) made by the Russian security software manufacturer Kaspersky Lab that they have discovered 'evidence' of NSA involvement in malware. Now, Bloomberg claims that the Moscow-based computer security company has effectively been taken over by the FSB. Company founder Eugene Kaspersky was educated at a KBG-run school, which was never a secret, but the new report describes a much more current and intimate connection.
Kaspersky Lab is denying the allegations, as one might expect, and counter with the statement:
It's not as though the US has clean hands in all of this. The CIA has funded the development of security software firms like FireEye, Veracode, and Hytrust though its In-Q-Tel investment fund, and American firms have been noticeably silent when it comes to investigating suspected US state-sponsored malware.
We are unlikely to hear the truth from either side, nor should we realistically expect a confession from the NSA or the FSB. Nevertheless, it is possible that the security industries on both sides are 'guilty' of looking after their respective government's interests and what we are seeing is just another day in the world of intelligence collection and cyber-security, the world of claim and counter-claim.
[Editor's Comment: Typo fixed at 15:39 UTC]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2015, @08:10AM
I did not straight on believe the news, because Kaspersky can be easily made into a puppet, if they aren't already. I don't believe it about the spyware until some other than Russian company confirms it. But it's not like US hasn't done it before, so it could easily be true. I bet Kaspersky will not report Russian state spyware though, so if the NSA spyware is true, then it is as much probaganda as it is security.