Slashdot Mirror
US Senators Seek Military Ban on Kaspersky Lab Products Amid FBI Probe (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: U.S. senators sought on Wednesday to ban Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab's products from use by the military because of fears the company is vulnerable to "Russian government influence," a day after the FBI interviewed several of its U.S. employees as part of a probe into its operations. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents visited the homes of Kaspersky employees late on Tuesday in multiple U.S. cities, although no search warrants were served, according to two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the FBI probe. Kaspersky Lab confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that FBI agents have had "brief interactions" with some of its U.S. employees, discussions that the company described as "due diligence" chats. The interviews were followed on Wednesday by the release of a defense spending policy bill passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which would prohibit the U.S. Defense Department from using Kaspersky software platforms because the company "might be vulnerable to Russian government influence," according to a summary of the legislation.
No they don't. There are no specialized milspec microchips, controllers, and other ICs fabricated in China. Any company attempting to do so would be in violation of several laws that come with severe penalties.
That's why China expends the large portion of their espionage budget stealing tech from the US. US authorities arrest several Chinese "business" man a year trying to get stolen tech out of the country. They should be careful because the Russians got bent over a royally screwed pulling the same shit back in the 80's. Russia was trying to steal some industrial controller and PLC technologies for oil and gas pipeline control in the mid-80's and the CIA let them but not before leaving a little surprise embedded in the firmware. 6 months later the Siberian-Russian oil pipeline suffered an explosion that could be seen from orbit.
Maybe some of that, but the difference between that and Cisco being "guilty for being American" because of NSA hijacking shipments and hacking their hardware is what?
The reality is that a Russian company is far more vulnerable to kinds of influence that would be outright illegal and American companies have the luxury of being able to open resist explicit efforts to compromise their systems and organizations in an actual judicial system.
Sure, there's all kinds of secret FISA courts and national security leverage the US government can use, but Tim Cook isn't going to the gulag for telling the FBI and NSA to bugger off. A Russian company is far more vulnerable to what really are mafia tactics.