"Russian antivirus firm faked malware to harm rivals - Ex-employees"

[Piteko21]

Content source

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/14/us-kaspersky-rivals-idUSKCN0QJ1CR20150814?utm_source=twitter

Beginning more than a decade ago, one of the largest security companies in the world, Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, tried to damage rivals in the marketplace by tricking their antivirus software programs into classifying benign files as malicious, according to two former employees.

They said the secret campaign targeted Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), AVG Technologies NV (AVG.N), Avast Software and other rivals, fooling some of them into deleting or disabling important files on their customers' PCs.

Some of the attacks were ordered by Kaspersky Lab's co-founder, Eugene Kaspersky, in part to retaliate against smaller rivals that he felt were aping his software instead of developing their own technology, they said...

Kaspersky Lab strongly denied that it had tricked competitors into categorizing clean files as malicious, so-called false positives.

"Our company has never conducted any secret campaign to trick competitors into generating false positives to damage their market standing," Kaspersky said in a statement to Reuters. "Such actions are unethical, dishonest and their legality is at least questionable."

read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...vals-idUSKCN0QJ1CR20150814?utm_source=twitter

 

[Secondmineboy]

Im done with AVs if this keeps going.........

 

[Piteko21]

I begin to doubt the antivirus softwares more than some cracks, unfortunately...

 

[vivid]

Ah. The mysterious employees.

 

[Enju]

Who knows if those "ex employees" are telling the truth but if they are it would instantly make me remove all Kaspersky installations. As long as there is no real information I doubt their statements.

 

[cruelsister]

No!!!! Really????? Kaspersky caught in unethical practices? Actually probably the most innocuous of charges that could be levied against them.

 

[Cch123]

Its already well established that Kaspersky did an experiment something of this nature some time ago and they published their results openly. In their test, they created 20 harmless files and added detections for them in Kaspersky. They uploaded the files to VirusTotal. A while later, a VirusTotal rescan showed 14 AV vendors detecting those harmless files...
More info: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/10/kaspersky_malware_detection_experiment/

Anyway, these employees are hard to believe. Microsoft stealing detections? No way.

EDIT: My bad, I stopped reading halfway and didn't realise the article was talking about Kaspersky directly manipulating and submitting manipulated files to competitors, and not just attacking AVs that steal its detection. But still, we cannot to believe "anonymous" sources without concrete evidence.

 

[Piteko21]

I thought that Reuters was more credible but may have cheated...


Kaspersky on twitter:

 

[Enju]

I thought that Reuters was more credible but may have cheated...

I love it
Reuters is turning into the German "Bild" which is famous for their crappy stories and dumbness.

 

[Soulbound]

If you think Kasperky is the only one back then to have done that, sit back with a beer, reflect for a moment. Then look back and see who were the top 5 Giants at the time. Shall name them: Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, Avast, AVG (no, NOD32 was not popular around the world to the same level as the others).

Now please do tell me the others have not thought of ways to "put" the competition behind a step.

Not seeing a pattern there? Let's use Human Nature for example. Are there 10 people out of 10 that would gladly let the competition take over them? No, perhaps 1 out of 10.

This business like any other business is a competition. Sadly, some choose to use "dirty tatics", while others publicity stunts.

Is everyone now going to jump to the bandwagon of: I will refuse to use Kaspersky now? Perhaps but then are they really doing so or just saying?

 

[Enju]

If you think Kasperky is the only one back then to have done that, sit back with a beer, reflect for a moment. Then look back and see who were the top 5 Giants at the time. Shall name them: Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, Avast, AVG (no, NOD32 was not popular around the world to the same level as the others).

Now please do tell me the others have not thought of ways to "put" the competition behind a step.

Not seeing a pattern there? Let's use Human Nature for example. Are there 10 people out of 10 that would gladly let the competition take over them? No, perhaps 1 out of 10.

This business like any other business is a competition. Sadly, some choose to use "dirty tatics", while others publicity stunts.

Is everyone now going to jump to the bandwagon of: I will refuse to use Kaspersky now? Perhaps but then are they really doing so or just saying?

Nobody should just stop using Kaspersky because two anonymous persons are telling some crappy story.
In this case it wouldn't put the competition behind, it would make their analyses more in-depth and not trust every Kaspersky detection, so tell my why would Kaspersky want their competition to improve their engines/detection? There are exactly zero reasons...
If they would really do something like this I personally would stop using it after 8 years because every company has exactly one chance to prove their competence and if they blow it, it's over.

 

[Kent]

Whom to trust now? Kaspersky you too!!

 

[Soulbound]

Trust or not up to the user. However let's see who uncovered Stuxnet and Flame? Yep Kaspersky IIRC.
Who in the past few years had more severe False Positives affecting Windows System files? Nope, not Kaspersky, not McAfee but Avast.
Did the controversy of McAfee affect the company in such way that it wouldn't be installed anywhere? Nope it didn't and its endpoint protection is just on par with Kaspersky and Symantec endpoint protection level.

Russian software: Dr Web and Kaspersky: considered one of the few bests on the market. Do people really doubt Russians? Some reading on the Russian's level of technology will shed some light.

eitherway, my personal opinion is: whether the claim was true or not, is not a reason to stop using it. Boycotting it because of such issues is just silly (no offense to anyone).

I don't recall seeing many talks about it when Kaspersky was made like it had close ties to KGB back in March or April this year.

 

[sinu]

Reuters reports antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab sabotaged competitors by deliberately marking clean files as infected in a worldwide database. The news agency has interviewed two Kaspersky ex-employees who state that Kaspersky targeted Microsoft, AVG and Avast and other rivals.

Kaspersky fooled some their antivirus products into deleting or disabling important files because they falsely marked them as malware. The Russian antivirus developer achieved this by reporting false information to the worldwide used virus database VirusTotal.

The ex-employees even state in the interview that Kaspersky Labs co-founder Eugene Kaspersky recommended the method. He argued that some rivals copied Kaspersky technology instead of developing new technology themselves.

AVG, Avast and Microsoft confirm that unknown parties have tried to sabotage them but didn’t comment on who was behind it. Kaspersky Labs also denies the allegations, “our company has never conducted any secret campaign to trick competitors into generating false positives to damage their market standing,” Kaspersky said in a statement to Reuters. “Such actions are unethical, dishonest and their legality is at least questionable.”

Co-founder Eugene Kaspersky also responded on Twitter, calling the story “”complete BS” and stating the Reuters journalist, “is an alien missioned to conquer the Earth – Ex-colleagues ”

 

[hjlbx]

I'm not surprised... and no, it isn't just a "Russian thing." There is a lot of under-handed inter-play between all the anti-virus vendors... they're all trying to make a buck and leave the others in the dust...

It appears Eugene Kaspersky has some major resentments against competitors that copy his firm's technology... that's understandable, but being vindictive in such a way as to put the innocent users at risk is so, so, sooooo very low....

 

[SherKaan]

Disgraceful!

 

[Nightwalker]

I posted the below on Wilders forum and my opinion remains the same:

In the past years I noticed that many antivirus signatures are just copycats from Kaspersky and the use of Virustotal to copy is a fact.
I think we had a discussion about this here on Wilders (2008-2009 maybe?).

Kaspersky are at fault if it is true, but the other antivirus firms are even worse, they really have a bad R&D to follow other companies so blind, they shouldn't be trust at all.

 

[darko999]

Kaspersky provides great protection, competitors can make their own signatures if they want and stop trusting third parties hash and signatures. If they don't want troubles please make your AV works without the need of third party malware databases.

 

[hjlbx]

@Nightwalker

Then you have Comodo that isn't Virus Total base and file verdicts take up to months... "Old School" manual process. Of course, this is the most dependable method but many users complain - including myself - that the process is way too slow...

Big problems with signatures all the way around for all antivirus vendors.

 

[Kent]

I never used Kaspersky but feel sad for my friends who put their trust in it and held it sacred Shocking!!