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

Actual headline:

[king neckbeard]

Here's what the actual headline should be:
Tech firms let Russia probe software widely used by US government, following same processes US government, and all other governments, use.

This is a non-story. They try to make it sound like this is some nefarious method to undermine the US government, when the reality is that they're checking to make sure there aren't NSA backdoors.

Re:Actual headline:

[gweihir]

Indeed. And governments can get access to windows source code as well. It is a good bet that the Russians and the Chinese also have this access.

LINUX IS RUSSIAN TREASON!

[Anonymous Coward]

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