Technology @lemmy.world fne8w2ah @lemmy.world 7mo ago

Kaspersky: Biden administration preparing to prevent Americans from using Russian-made software over national security concern | CNN Politics

edition.cnn.com Biden administration preparing to prevent Americans from using Russian-made software over national security concern | CNN Politics

The Biden administration is preparing to take the unusual step of issuing an order that would prevent US companies and citizens from using software made by a major Russian cybersecurity firm because of national security concerns, five US officials familiar with the matter told CNN.

Biden administration preparing to prevent Americans from using Russian-made software over national security concern | CNN Politics

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108 comments

Kaspersky is just one piece of software to avoid. Others include:

Telegram

Avast AV

Anything from 360 Safe / Qihoo 360

Opera browser ... now owned by above

Zoom

FileZilla / UTorrent / other PUA that bundles adware and acts essentially as a trojan
- Add in:
  
  TikTok
  
  Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Threads
  
  Reddit :)
  
  For antivirus, Microsoft's built-in one is fine. Ideally use an OS that has better security and lower default permissions like popular Linux distros (at the very least, it's a smaller target than Windows). I haven't checked recently, but using Malware Bytes for occasional runs (not as active protection though) was good and is probably still good.
  
  But in general, use FOSS, at the very least they'll probably not pull a Reddit and screw over their users.
  
  Seriously. Windows Defender is an excellent piece of software, and its all you need. Paying for anything else is kinda foolish.
  
  If you're on windows, you dont need anything else except maybe to install malware bytes once a month, run the scan, and uninstall it.
- This just feels like a random hit list; how did you come up with it?
  
  Why zoom? It's based out of San Francisco.
  
  I also object to the Telegram inclusion. Unless you want to include Discord, and various other server side encrypted communication apps. The founders may be Russians by birth but they have Ukrainian roots, are no longer Russian citizens, had their first company stolen from them by the Kremlin, etc. Also I always like to note, Einstein was a German by birth but he was no Nazi.
  
  What's the FileZilla connection? Tim Kosse (which as far as I can tell it's still the primary author) is a German.
  
  Honestly, Zoom just has a hilariously high frequency of vulnerabilities being discovered.
  
  This very partial list is based on my being in cyber security for 20 years and working a variety of incidents involving these apps. You all can do whatever you want with your computers.
- Telegram is better than WhatsApp. At least it has a decent Linux client, and all clients are open source. WhatsApp has neither.
  
  Unless you're constantly using secret chats all your data is stored in plain text... This is actually worse than WhatsApp
  
  You got an answer why it's not.
  
  Maybe better client and more features. But Russians have full access to servers and messages. They could read whatever they want. It's a fact that proved during war that Russia started in Ukraine.
- Ah fuck, what's the alternative to FileZilla?! I've been using that for like 17 years.
  
  So just to illustrate, I went to the normal FileZilla download page and downloaded the Win64 package. Then I submitted it to VirusTotal.
  
  https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?platform=win64#close
  
  https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/dbde8a4bd71bb1fbc0511cdb657dfeffdaedc513aa425f856043532a7cba6fce
  
  Dolphin on KDE/Linux and WinSCP on Windows
  
  Winscp?
  
  Same here.
  
  CrossFTP seems promising. Also has the multi OS support.
  
  Cyberduck
- I'd say avoid AVG too then since it's basically Avast.
  
  I don't even use antivirus software anymore. Previously, every time I found a new one recommended by security experts I thought I could trust, about a year later, it turned to shit or was relieved to always having been shit. Now I just backup my stuff and vet any executable. I don't do any serious work on my Windows install anyway, so nuking it isn't a problem.
- Does Escape from Tarkov make the list?
  
  Just don't use it for secure comms and anything tangentially connected for what you consider "secure" matters. Simple as.
- Out of curiosity, why Telegram? (Im out of the loop on this one)
  
  As for uTorrent, I’ve got version 2.2.1 and have never allowed it to update in the last decade or however long it’s been. I think that was the last version that didn’t allow any ads or otherwise and was simply a solid p2p client at the time.
  
  Because it's less (because of history stored on server and use of OTR being problematic) secure than ICQ in year 2003, prone to phishing and, yes, made by people I wouldn't trust.
  
  may I ask why didn't you just switch to qbittorrent? is there a feature that utorrent has but qbit doesn't?
  
  Because Russians started it I guess?
- Telegram ftw. Down with WhatsApp.
  
  Signal has better defaults and a less compromised origin
- There's nothing really wrong with telegram.
  
  It's just social media for people who aren't indoctrinated by the west.
Country in a trade war / cold war with another country decides to block imports of some product from said other country, citing fears of the product being poisoned. It's barely news.
- It’s news worthy enough for a technology sublemmy, I’d think.
  
  Yeah it is, and I'm happy about it being posted, it's not that. I should be less sarcastic and more direct, I am just getting jaded. Thanks for pointing it out.
  
  I guess what I am saying is more that of course the US is going to try to limit Russian influence and trade, just as Russia does as much as it can. Same with China and Tiktok and whatever.
  
  It's reasonable, it's actually one of the more reasonable things the US does. There are a ton of people around here who cosplay as communists while rooting for fascist Putin who try to blow these things up as an attack on free trade or freedom of speech.
  
  It's not like Putin's people literally wrote and published a book about how they want to do election interference using stuff like this.
- It's news. That's all that matters.
  
  Also this is actually a pretty unique and interesting scenario. You ever seen a digital embargo of software from a single country imposed on citizens? Not to mention the dignity and rights violations on both sides...
  
  Yes, I've seen digital embargoes preventing companies in other countries doing business in mine, because their legal environment differs from ours.
  
  Google Analytics got banned in several European countries comes to mind. I remember some small blogs writing about that, not much else.
Why would anybody in their right mind use Kasper by now.
Why would anyone trust, want to use, and yet alone pay for Russian antivirus software
- I'm not sure how that's relevant. People should be free to use whatever they want. I'm not interested in Russian software, but that doesn't mean banning it is okay. The same goes for Chinese software like TikTok (not touching that), Iranian software, or North Korean software, if that's even a thing. I don't care if literal Nazis made the software, people should be free to use what they want.
  
  The only areas the government should get involved are:
  
  government owned devices
  
  public advisories
  
  prosecution of crimes where the software is involved
  
  The software I choose to use is not the government's business. If I violate a law, charge me with a crime, but don't preemptively ban stuff.
  
  What if said software is being used to manipulate national interests from a civilian level and its owned by an adverserial nation?
- Because it's a good antivirus
  
  Good luck
  
  You found one video supporting your viewpoint. Kaspersky's role in Russian intelligence has been an open secret since the mid 2010s. This is Facebook Anti-Vaxxer "research" methodology.
  
  Kaspersky was actually good a long time ago, but there was a shakeup and the FSB started to get more involved in their operations somehow. Its not safe now, is what i'm saying.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  antivirus
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Only pure all-American spyware on my machine. 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅
You’d think the fact that Kaspersky is useless would be enough to keep people from using it.
- You would think that but I have a Friend that bought the paid version and swears by it, he had more than enough problems with it blocking everything it wants, I don't say anything anymore I just shake my head and move on.
- It's not useless for brainless users sadly
We gonna have to worry about 7zip?
Will this affect websites, too? Cs.rin.ru is a good resource for a certain type of thing.
FBI on its way to arrest me because I used MPC-BE to play dolby digital content without a license for the ac3 codec like 10 years ago lol
- They can pry MPC-BE from my warm cheeze curl stained hands! I've been using it to play 4K BluRays on an HTPC, and to decode all these new proprietary surround sound codecs so I don't need to buy a new expensive ass AVR.
Russia has computers???
Wow the comments and upvotes/downvotes here are stupid.
If American really cared about security, they would use free software.
- If anyone cared about security, they would use free software.
😂😂😂.

American software is created by Jesus Christ.
- American software is created by some dude in Nebraska maintaining libg++ at no financial gain to him.
- Damn immigrant

108 comments