Kaspersky Lab Saga Grows Weirder as Critics of the Security Firm Say Bumbling Spy Tried to Discredit Them

fabiobr

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A man who goes by the name Lucas Lambert reportedly spent months setting up meetings with three cybersecurity experts under false pretenses last year, hoping to get them to say that they were paid to criticize Kaspersky Lab. Lambert was unsuccessful, but the attempt sheds new light on alleged covert activity potentially carried out on behalf of the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm.

In a new report from the Associated Press, a number of different analysts claim that they met with Lambert believing that he wanted them to deliver talks at a cybersecurity conference. But the experts, including Keir Giles who studies the Russian military for British think tank Chatham House, were almost immediately suspicious of Lambert’s real intentions.

“He was drilling down hard on whether there had been any ulterior motives behind negative media commentary on Kaspersky,” Giles told the AP. “The angle he wanted to push was that individuals—like me—who had been quoted in the media had been induced by or motivated to do so by Kaspersky’s competitors.”

Kaspersky Lab has come under increased scrutiny ever since the Russian government waged a divisive information campaign during the 2016 presidential election to help elect President Donald Trump. The U.S. government has banned the use of Kaspersky software on federal computers, ostensibly on the grounds that its antivirus software stole documents from government computers. Twitter has even banned Kaspersky from advertising on its platform. The security firm, meanwhile, denies any ties to Russian intelligence.

In an October 2017 story published at Wired, Giles called it “entirely normal and natural” that Kaspersky would work with Russian intelligence agencies.But that kind of comment would likely raise the ire of any tech company, even if it was true.

“We’re just in the same kind of territory of any large multinational company being induced to collect information for the U.S. government,” Giles told Wired. Notably, Huawei, which the U.S. has accused of committing fraud and stealing trade secrets as it attempts to quarantine the China-based technology giant’s 5G technology, has had a similar defense of late, pointing out that the U.S. government demands private information of American-based tech companies.

When reached for comment, Kaspersky declined to address whether Lambert has ever worked for the company. “Kaspersky Lab has no comments at this time,” Meghan Rimol, corporate communications manager, told Gizmodo by email.

By Giles’ second meeting it became clear that Lambert had no interest in just having him speak at a conference, AP reports. The alleged spy’s tactics started to take an almost comical tone, if Giles is to be believed, as Lambert started asking Giles “to repeat himself and talk loudly.” All he needed was a big flower-shaped microphone on his lapel, by the sound of it.

As the AP explains, Lambert’s supposed firm, NPH Investments, doesn’t appear to exist in any real sense:

In an email exchange with the AP, Lambert insisted that he and his company were genuine, but he did not reply to follow-up questions about the multiple discrepancies in his story or make himself available for an interview. The AP could find no evidence of the existence of the firm Lambert said he worked for, Tokyo- and Hong Kong-based NPH Investments.
It’s not immediately clear who this Lambert character may have been working for. Was he working directly on behalf of Kaspersky? Was this the work of the Russian government? Or, if we’re going to go full cloak-and-dagger with our speculation, is this a disinformation campaign coordinated by a western intel agency to further cast suspicion on the Russian firm during the New Cold War?

There were enough similarities to previous spying cases with other tech firms that the AP reached out to Black Cube, an Israeli intelligence firm, which was caught trying to discredit Citizen Lab, a watchdog research group. Citizen Lab believes Black Cube’s bungled spying attempt was connected to its report that spyware made by a notorious Israeli cyberweapons firm, NSO Group, had been installed on the iPhone of a confidante of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to his murder.

Black Cube denies employing Lambert and also denies ever working for Kaspersky.

Who is Lucas Lambert? Whoever he is, he’s been burned. That being said, Gizmodo would love to talk to him. We’re just going to need him to talk louder. No, even louder. And could you repeat that? Spying for whom?

[Associated Press]
 

Entreri

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Certainly sounds like a fake name, lol.

As for NSO:

"The Canadian researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found. "

"Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded."

"Lately the group has drawn attention for its repeated exposés of an Israeli surveillance software vendor called the NSO Group, a firm whose wares have been used by governments to target journalists in Mexico, opposition figures in Panama and human rights activists in the Middle East."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/citizen-lab-toronto-undercover-israeli-software-1.4994068

One last thing:

Interestingly, one of operatives that targeted Citizen's Lab was named Michel Lambert.

This guy name is Lucas Lambert, mere coincidence?

For non native speakers, these fake names can be challenge.
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

I don't trust Kaspersky, anything from Israeli, and a large part of anything from the USA. But more specifically, I have some personally gathered evidence and information from where I work that to me, makes it incontrovertible to never, ever trust Kaspersky.
 
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Mariihh

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I'd rather rely on Kaspersky than on American products, those are the worst, they've always had the craze of wanting to know everything about any individual, they're ignorant to the point of not understanding that people just want protection and not someone to be spying on the whole your life 24 hours a day.
 
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I'd rather rely on Kaspersky than on American products, those are the worst, they've always had the craze of wanting to know everything about any individual, they're ignorant to the point of not understanding that people just want protection and not someone to be spying on the whole your life 24 hours a day.
Fun fact, last year USA borders where accused of confiscating devices to steal the data in it.
 

Burrito

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If you have intelligence/political or information worthy of industrial espionage on your computer, you should not use Kasperski. They should not be trusted.

So for the vast majority of people, Kaspersky is fine. It's good protection.
 

Nightwalker

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If you have intelligence/political or information worthy of industrial espionage on your computer, you should not use Kasperski. They should not be trusted.

So for the vast majority of people, Kaspersky is fine. It's good protection.

Yes, but this is true for ANY antivirus.

This kind of person/institution should be running a custom Linux distro or a very special Windows build with custom or in-house security solution.

Ps: Personally I think that an average american citizen is better running Kaspersky security solution than Norton/Trend Micro for example, but thats just my opinion.
 

bribon77

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If you have intelligence/political or information worthy of industrial espionage on your computer,
Those who have these confidential things are closed to the outside. It's a closed PC, I do not think they use it to play and visit social networks or youtube.
(It's what I imagine):giggle:
 
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Burrito

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Those who have these confidential things are closed to the outside. It's a closed PC, I do not think they use it to play and visit social networks or youtube.
(It's what I imagine):giggle:

Yeah, you are right.

For every NATO country, there are classified Intranets with different security levels. Those effectively don't interact with the internet.

And then there are sensitive but unclassified networks. And this is where trouble often occurs..
Virus attacks Spain's defense intranet, foreign state suspected: paper
 
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bribon77

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ForgottenSeer 58943

If you have intelligence/political or information worthy of industrial espionage on your computer, you should not use Kasperski. They should not be trusted.

So for the vast majority of people, Kaspersky is fine. It's good protection.

I'd extend that to not be trusted regardless. If you think they only sniff out classified/political stuff you may find out you are mistaken. I don't want to implicate them with anything specific at this time however so consider my statement baseless and merely conjecture.
 
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Burrito

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I'd extend that to not be trusted regardless. If you think they only sniff out classified/political stuff you may find out you are mistaken. I don't want to implicate them with anything specific at this time however so consider my statement baseless and merely conjecture.

No way Sly.

I consider your statement hard evidence, and I'm preparing subpoenas.
 
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ForgottenSeer 58943

I used this machine to determine Kaspersky's activities.

212627
 

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