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Kaspersky Halts Europol Partnership After Controversial EU Parliament Vote (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Kaspersky Lab announced it was temporarily halting its cooperation with Europol following the voting of a controversial motion in the European Parliament. The Russian antivirus vendor will also stop working on the NoMoreRansom project that provided free ransomware decrypters for ransomware victims.
The company's decision comes after the EU Parliament voted a controversial motion that specifically mentions Kaspersky as a "confirmed as malicious" software and urges EU states to ban it as part of a joint EU cyber defense strategy. The EU did not present any evidence for its assessment that Kaspersky is malicious, but even answered user questions claiming it has no evidence. The motion is just a EU policy and has no legislative power, put it is still an official document. Kaspersky software has been previously banned from Government systems in the US, UK, Netherlands, and Lithuania.
The company's decision comes after the EU Parliament voted a controversial motion that specifically mentions Kaspersky as a "confirmed as malicious" software and urges EU states to ban it as part of a joint EU cyber defense strategy. The EU did not present any evidence for its assessment that Kaspersky is malicious, but even answered user questions claiming it has no evidence. The motion is just a EU policy and has no legislative power, put it is still an official document. Kaspersky software has been previously banned from Government systems in the US, UK, Netherlands, and Lithuania.
They didn't call them a "malware manufacturer." US authorities claimed Kaspersky allowed FSB agents to use its software as a search engine of users' PCs and look for sensitive files. That's how an NSA leak happened, claimed the US. Kaspersky said the leak happened because the NSA agent took nation-state cyber-weapons home, which its software detected and uploaded to its servers for analysis. They also say the agent's computer had several malware infections, and other malware operations could have stolen the files and passed them to Russian intelligence. It's a he says she says mess.
Not quite how it works.
In the US, certain agencies are forbidden by law from using their tactics on US citizens.
A workaround is to get foreign agencies to do the intrusive work and share it with the US.
Then there's reciprocity.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.