Ask Slashdot: Should Users Uninstall Kaspersky's Antivirus Software? (slashdot.org)

First, here's the opinion of two former NSA cybersecurity analysts (via Consumer Reports): "It's a big deal," says Blake Darche, a former NSA cybersecurity analyst and the founder of the cybersecurity firm Area 1. "For any consumers or small businesses that are concerned about privacy or have sensitive information, I wouldn't recommend running Kaspersky." By its very nature antivirus software is an appealing tool for hackers who want to access remote computers, security experts say. Such software is designed to scan a computer comprehensively as it searches for malware, then send regular reports back to a company server. "One of the things people don't realize, by installing that tool you give [the software manufacturer] the right to pull any information that might be interesting," says Chris O'Rourke, another former NSA cybersecurity expert who is the CEO of cybersecurity firm Soteria.
But for that reason, Bloomberg View columnist Leonid Bershidsky suggests any anti-virus software will be targetted by nation-state actors, and argues that for most users, "non-state criminal threats are worse. That's why Interpol this week signed a new information-sharing agreement with Kaspersky despite all the revelations in the U.S. media: The international police cooperation organization deals mainly with non-state actors, including profit-seeking hackers, rather than with the warring intelligence services."

And long-time Slashdot reader freddieb is a loyal Kaspersky user who is wondering what to do, calling the software "very effective and non-intrusive." And in addition, "Numerous recent hacks have gotten my data (Equifax, and others) so I expect I have nothing else to fear except ransomware."

Share your own informed opinions in the comments. Should users uninstall Kaspersky's antivirus software?

Comments

Re:No

[sittingnut]

this is indeed pure propaganda by nsa.

kaspersky software detected(as it should) nsa's new malware in a negligent incompetent private contractor's private computer, alerted hq, russian gov may have heard about it, kaspersky is punished for doing its job. btw american made software did not detect such malware.

if, after knowing the facts(as opposed to nsa propaganda), you find kaspersky is a threat, uninstall it.

Re:ANY antivirus

[plopez]

That assumes you can. If your apps are hosted remotely (aka "The Cloud") do YOU know what they are using? What about their subcontractors and sub-subcontractors? What about your bank? Let's keep going and ask about your health care provider. And so on. Do you know?

Re:ANY antivirus

[Flytrap]

From what I understand ANY anti-virus or anti-malware tool is susceptible to being targeted by powerful nation-state actors for use is accessing user's computers... not just those from the US or Russia. That means that F-Secure, or any other such tool from any other country could still be hacked by the China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, the US or any other nation-state with an active cyber intelligence programme and used to violate the user's privacy and confidentiality.

I do not know what the real answer is... but I believe that the recent cyber intrusions are going to strengthen the advocacy for sandboxed application models and strict or explicit permissioned based access to computer hardware, software, network and data resources that have become prevalent on modern mobile platforms. Powerful nation-state actors will still try to hack and find vulnerabilities in the underlying operating system host or hypervisor layer, but at least it would give security practitioners a single concerted layer to focus their intrusion detection efforts on.

Protecting the cloud and the various systems, protocols, etc that make up the disparate components of cloud based systems is a whole other kettle of fish, which i think is beyond the scope of the question posed by the original poster.

Re:ANY antivirus

[jellomizer]

For the most part today we don't really deal with individual software but for good or bad we deal with mostly a service Infrastructure.
So if you have an Apple Infrastructure, you may have an iPhone, a Mac and use airdrop to share files and use the iCloud.
If you use the Google Infrastructure, you will have an Android Phone, a PC, using Google Drive
If you are using a Microsoft infrastructure, You are more or less out of the phone, but you have Windows 10, Office 365 and OneDrive

While you can mix these services around, but you are normally better off sticking to the brand you like as it offers better support and extra cool features.

3rd party tools on your infrastructure in general will detract from your experience and your ability to get things, done... (You may not be able to get away from this, due to cost concerns, or just needing a tool that isn't available) However these tools installed are nearly always at risk of being not supported, or breaking something else.

I am not saying this is good thing, being locked to a vendor for bulk of your use cases is overall bad, however this is the world that we currently live in. And you are better off using the Windows AV for windows because in general it is better built and it isn't trying to hack the system to do what it needs to do.