Officials Fear Russia Could Try To Target United States Through Kaspersky AV (go.com)

Russia's growing aggression toward the United States has deepened concerns among U.S. officials that Russian spies might try to exploit one of the world's most respected cybersecurity firms to snoop on Americans or sabotage key U.S. systems, according to an ABC News investigation. From the report: Products from the company, Kaspersky Lab, based in Moscow, are widely used in homes, businesses and government agencies throughout the United States, including the Bureau of Prisons. Kaspersky Lab's products are stocked on the shelves of Target and Best Buy, which also sells laptops loaded by manufacturers with the firm's anti-virus software. But in a secret memorandum sent last month to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Senate Intelligence Committee raised possible red flags about Kaspersky Lab and urged the intelligence community to address potential risks posed by the company's powerful market position. "This [is an] important national security issue," declared the bipartisan memorandum, described to ABC News by congressional sources.

Comments

Re:Like our Cisco network equipment

[TWX]

Chips?

Most of the Catalyst switches are made in China. The 2960 series, 3560 series, 3600 series, 3750 series, and 3800 series are all made in China. The 4500 series are made in Mexico. You'd be hard-pressed to find a conventional L3 switch not manufactured outside of the United States, and I would be amazed if any L2 switches are made in the US.

Re:Never heard of them...

[geek]

I haven't used anti-virus software in years. I only have Windows Defender and Malwarebytes installed on my Windows PCs.

Read the first sentence you wrote. Then read the second one. You now have my permission to feel stupid.

Re:Isn't this the NSA's job?

[StormReaver]

Along those lines: I'm far more worried about being targeted by our own Government than by the Russians. The U.S. Federal government has shown itself time and again to be, at best, no better than the Russians where our rights and freedoms are concerned:

1) Continual erosion of the Constitution.
2) Ignoring the Constitution when following the law becomes inconvenient.
3) Spying on American citizens.
4) Systematic molestation by Federal officials at airports.
5) Lying to the American public as a matter of standard policy (though that is implied in the other four).

The Russians are WAY down on the list of things we Americans have to worry about at home.

Lights Out management.

[DrYak]

Also, I know it sounds ridiculous, but there is a back door in Intel chips that allows you to access them, even when the OS is not installed

Technically:

1 - it's not in the Intel *CPU*, it's in the Intel *Server Motherboard Chipsets*.
By design, Intel ME (Management Engine) is a useful tool so sys-admin can remotely access and checks servers (or enterprise workstation) whose OS won't even respond anymore. (e.g.: to diagnose early boot process steps, oversee a firmware update, etc.)
It' basically a small embed CPU core running a micro embed Linux and featuring a web server for the interface and a sort of VNC server and port forwarder/remote device mapper.
In practice, this service is done very sloppily and bugs are constantly found that enable exploit and un authorized acces.

2 - Intel ME has equivalent in other manufacturer called IPMI. e.g.: most of the AMD server motherboard features that one.
Again, like with Intel ME, cirtical exploitable bug are regularily found in IPMI, meaning it similarly easy to circumvent access control.

A big chunk of these exploitable bugs in both Intel ME and IPMI are very probably due to sloppy programming for product rushed to the marker.

But given how many bugs are discovered, and how juicy light-out-management is as a target, there bound to be a few "not so honest mistakes" among these bugs.
But these not-quite-accidental bugs aren't only to be blamed on US agencies.