Tech Firms Let Russia Probe Software Widely Used by US Government (reuters.com)

Major global technology providers SAP, Symantec, and McAfee have allowed Russian authorities to hunt for vulnerabilities in software deeply embedded across the U.S. government, Reuters reported on Thursday. From the report: The practice potentially jeopardizes the security of computer networks in at least a dozen federal agencies, U.S. lawmakers and security experts said. It involves more companies and a broader swath of the government than previously reported. In order to sell in the Russian market, the tech companies let a Russian defense agency scour the inner workings, or source code, of some of their products. Russian authorities say the reviews are necessary to detect flaws that could be exploited by hackers. But those same products protect some of the most sensitive areas of the U.S government, including the Pentagon, NASA, the State Department, the FBI and the intelligence community, against hacking by sophisticated cyber adversaries like Russia.

Comments

The US gov't shouldn't use open source software?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if it's wrong/bad for foreign entities to view the source code of software used by the US government, does that mean that the US government should avoid any and all open source software because foreign entities can easily view its source code?

LINUX IS RUSSIAN TREASON!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothing, Linus Torvalds regularly publishes code that EVERY SINGLE RUSSIAN can access. It's TREASON!