Interesting article on Kaspersky
NetworkingStudent
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Interesting article on Kaspersky
From the website:
Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils US Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals | Danger Room | Wired.com
In many ways, the relationship between the Kremlin and Kaspersky Lab is the same as the one between Washington and the big US security companies. Moscow gives millions to Kaspersky to help secure government networks—much as the Pentagon pours millions into contracts with McAfee and Symantec. Kaspersky helps the FSB track down cybercrooks; McAfee and Symantec work with the FBI. Kaspersky employees brief the Duma, Russia’s parliament; American researchers brief Congress and the White House. These security firms have all become key players in their home countries’ network defenses and in cybersecurity investigations worldwide.
But while the American and Russian companies are similar, there are important differences. Stuxnet was a highly classified US operation serving one of the government’s top geopolitical goals. Symantec, a US company, went after it anyway. It’s hard to find a similar case of Kaspersky and the Kremlin working at cross-purposes.
The spyware was too complex for simple crooks or hacktivists, the researchers said. Flame had been coded by professionals, almost certainly at a government’s behest. The company called it a cyberweapon and speculated that it was related to Stuxnet.
On June 1, The New York Times revealed for the first time that the White House had, in fact, ordered the deployment of Stuxnet as part of a sophisticated campaign of cyberespionage and sabotage against Tehran. Then, on June 19, The Washington Post was able to confirm that Flame was yet another part of this shadow war against Iran. Kaspersky had outed—and in effect killed—it.
In a locked room down the hall from his office, Kaspersky is working on a secret project to fulfill that lofty ambition. Not even his assistant has been allowed inside. But after we’ve spent a day together—and knocked back a few shots of Chivas 12—he unlocks the door and offers me a peek. It’s an industrial control system, a computer for operating heavy machinery, just like the ones that Stuxnet attacked (and, Kaspersky researchers believe, Flame may also have targeted). Kaspersky’s team is quietly working on new ways to harden these systems against cyberattack—to protect the power grids and prisons and sewage plants that rely on these controllers. The idea is to make future Stuxnets harder to pull off. The controllers haven’t been engineered with security in mind, so the project is difficult. But if it succeeds, Kaspersky’s seemingly outsize vision of his company’s role in the world might become a little less outlandish.
From the website:
Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils US Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals | Danger Room | Wired.com
In many ways, the relationship between the Kremlin and Kaspersky Lab is the same as the one between Washington and the big US security companies. Moscow gives millions to Kaspersky to help secure government networks—much as the Pentagon pours millions into contracts with McAfee and Symantec. Kaspersky helps the FSB track down cybercrooks; McAfee and Symantec work with the FBI. Kaspersky employees brief the Duma, Russia’s parliament; American researchers brief Congress and the White House. These security firms have all become key players in their home countries’ network defenses and in cybersecurity investigations worldwide.
But while the American and Russian companies are similar, there are important differences. Stuxnet was a highly classified US operation serving one of the government’s top geopolitical goals. Symantec, a US company, went after it anyway. It’s hard to find a similar case of Kaspersky and the Kremlin working at cross-purposes.
The spyware was too complex for simple crooks or hacktivists, the researchers said. Flame had been coded by professionals, almost certainly at a government’s behest. The company called it a cyberweapon and speculated that it was related to Stuxnet.
On June 1, The New York Times revealed for the first time that the White House had, in fact, ordered the deployment of Stuxnet as part of a sophisticated campaign of cyberespionage and sabotage against Tehran. Then, on June 19, The Washington Post was able to confirm that Flame was yet another part of this shadow war against Iran. Kaspersky had outed—and in effect killed—it.
In a locked room down the hall from his office, Kaspersky is working on a secret project to fulfill that lofty ambition. Not even his assistant has been allowed inside. But after we’ve spent a day together—and knocked back a few shots of Chivas 12—he unlocks the door and offers me a peek. It’s an industrial control system, a computer for operating heavy machinery, just like the ones that Stuxnet attacked (and, Kaspersky researchers believe, Flame may also have targeted). Kaspersky’s team is quietly working on new ways to harden these systems against cyberattack—to protect the power grids and prisons and sewage plants that rely on these controllers. The idea is to make future Stuxnets harder to pull off. The controllers haven’t been engineered with security in mind, so the project is difficult. But if it succeeds, Kaspersky’s seemingly outsize vision of his company’s role in the world might become a little less outlandish.
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened."
--Alexander Graham Bell,
American inventor
--Alexander Graham Bell,
American inventor
Comments
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emerald_octane
Member Posts: 613
Eh..I don't think it had much to do with it being a US cyber weapon. The guy is infosec at heart; that's just what he and his guys set out to do. The fact that it was an american made weapon was probably just a nice bonus.