SoylentNews

zocalo [soylentnews.org] writes:

According to emails from October 2009 obtained by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley at Bloomberg it appears that Kaspersky Lab has been working with Russian Intelligence [bloomberg.com]. Despite long standing rumours [soylentnews.org] over these connections Eugene Kaspersky has always denied this to be the case, including as recently as last week in response to questions in the US Senate by Florida Republican Marco Rubio when he stated that "Claims about Kaspersky Lab’s ties to the Kremlin are “unfounded conspiracy theories” and “total BS,”" on Reddit, and even offering to hand over the source code [soylentnews.org] to the US Government for inspection.

While the exact nature of the co-operation with the FSB is still unclear, in the emails Kaspersky outlines a project undertaken in secret a year earlier “per a big request on the Lubyanka side,” a reference to the FSB offices, that “includes both technology to protect against attacks (filters) as well as interaction with the hosters (‘spreading’ of sacrifice) and active countermeasures (about which, we keep quiet) and so on,” Kaspersky wrote in one of the emails. Kaspersky Lab has confirmed that the emails are authentic. Whether this was legitimate work with the FSB in the prevention of cybercrime or securing FSB facilities or something more nefarious, it seems likely that this is not going to alleviate concerns over the use of their software putting further pressure on Kaspersky's business in other countries.

---

Original Submission