Advice Request Kaspersky KSN - enable or disable?

Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.

Should Kaspersky Security Network be enabled or disabled?

  • Enabled. The increased protection outweighs any privacy concerns.

    Votes: 61 92.4%
  • Disabled. Privacy concerns outweigh any protection gains.

    Votes: 3 4.5%
  • I am unable to decide either way.

    Votes: 2 3.0%

  • Total voters
    66
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uninfected1

Level 11
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Jan 28, 2016
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Particularly in light of various claims by some, including collusion between Kaspersky and the Russian security services, I would be very interested to hear people's thoughts on this matter, or any other privacy concerns they may have about Kaspersky. Please feel free to elaborate on your choice.
 

Mahesh Sudula

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Sep 3, 2017
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Particularly in light of various claims by some, including collusion between Kaspersky and the Russian security services, I would be very interested to hear people's thoughts on this matter, or any other privacy concerns they may have about Kaspersky. Please feel free to elaborate on your choice.
We are aware of the allegations of Kaspersky Lab's inappropriate ties to the Russian government. Until we see some actual proof of these allegations, we will treat them as unproven, and continue to recommend Kaspersky's security products as long as their performance continues to merit our endorsement ..
Trust in Russian Sicherheit
 
E

Eddie Morra

I think that keeping it enabled is fine - whether you're using Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) or not, so long as you have Kaspersky services installed on your environment, they can legally harvest any data they want anyway (as long as it is within their privacy policy and the said privacy policy is not illegal). If you do not trust Kaspersky enough to use their cloud network, you may as well not be using their services at all. The same applies for any software package from any other company.

For an average home user, I think using Kaspersky services to the best of their ability would be at customers interest in regards to keeping them secure from the latest threats - which would include leveraging the cloud network since it will be very helpful for this.

There have been millions of happy clients of Kaspersky. Kaspersky have prevented billions of malware infections. Kaspersky has increased awareness on a world-wide scale to the types of threats that are out there. It goes without saying that Kaspersky work hard on a regular basis to keep people safe from malware - and they are doing especially well under the immense pressure they've been under the past year.

I do not think that Kaspersky is the enemy - and they also contribute a lot to the community through exposing malware campaigns and providing decryption tools for specific ransomware variants - but I do not trust Russia which is the only reason as to why I do not recommend Kaspersky products anymore.
 

uninfected1

Level 11
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Jan 28, 2016
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I didn''t want to comment too early because I wanted to hear what a few others said first. I am using Kaspersky Free (actually KSC). In my opinion it was already right up there with the very best free AVs, but I think the latest version has put it at the top. I too have KSN enabled but I do have some reservations about doing this. Maybe there is nothing to worry about and the allegations are indeed unproven, but they are hard to ignore. I don't believe in having blind faith in any product and I do think Kaspersky could do a better job of disproving these allegations. For these reasons I don't really feel comfortable voting either way.

Same here. i have enabled it...becauce i have more trust in kaspersky than in qihoo

I completely agree. I too have more trust in Kaspersky than Qihoo, which I certainly would not use.
 

TairikuOkami

Level 35
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May 13, 2017
2,452
If you have KAV installed, you are already in its clutches, so disabling this feature does not matter much.
The main privacy concern is, that KSN works like smartscreen, it can upload anything without your consent.
Once something is detected via KSN, it is deployed as a signature a few hours later at most, so that is all you get.
 
E

Eddie Morra

Kaspersky was doing it's job! in my opinion!:)
Investigation Report for the September 2014 Equation malware detection incident in the US

Looking at the sequence of events and detections on this system, we quickly noticed that the user in question ran the above file with a folder name of “Office-2013-PPVL-x64-en-US-Oct2013.iso”. What is interesting is that this ISO file is malicious and was mounted and subsequently installed on the system along with files such as “kms.exe” (a name of a popular pirated software activation tool), and “kms.activator.for.microsoft.windows.8.server.2012.and.office.2013.all.editions”. Kaspersky Lab products detected the malware with the verdict Backdoor.Win32.Mokes.hvl.

It's interesting to know that an NSA contractor who was trusted to be in possession of zero-day vulnerabilities, lacked the ability to avoid pirated content for obvious reasons, and was operating a backdoored machine. It's worse when you remember that it was over pirating Microsoft Office 2013 - it isn't like the contractor was infected by an actor with deep pockets and a lot of resources.
 
D

Deleted member 178

the whole Kaspersky story was a joke; an idiot bring a NSA-style malware into his KIS-protected machine, so KSN did its job, it upload the threat for analysis. Don't worry KSN won't upload your naked pictures unless you wrap it with a 0-day LOL
 
L

Local Host

I've seen no evidence from foul play from Kaspersky, and I sure as hell won't believe anything coming from the USA and their "allies".
At the same time I'm not going to argue nor make you trust Kaspersky, if you don't trust Kaspersky it's your problem really.
I have KSN enabled and have no fears whasoever, specially since I'm protected by the EU Privacy Bubble.
 

mlnevese

Level 26
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May 3, 2015
1,531
If one gets to the point of being paranoid of every bit of software it's better to unplug from the internet, sell your phones and never go online again. From a strict point of view you can trust no software, no matter which country it comes from.

I on the other hand have two Russian security solutions on my computers (Kaspersky and Adguard), use two programs from IObit (Unlocker and Uninstaller) and according to the most paranoid out there, Mr. Putin and the Chinese Government should be right now analyzing every picture of my kids and dogs :)

I can understand being paranoid when you deal with Corporate or Government secrets or strategic data but this kind of secret should NEVER be on a personal computer anyway.
 
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