![]() ![]() Kaspersky Lab has acknowledged being hacked by a nation state once before: in 2015, it discovered that dozens of machines in its networks had been infected by the Duqu 2.0 spyware, which is believed to be linked to Israel. “If there is any indication that the company’s systems may have been exploited, we respectfully request relevant parties to responsibly provide the company with verifiable information,” he said. In an earlier statement, Mr Kaspersky had implied that a successful hack of Kaspersky Lab’s systems by Russian spies might have resulted in the breach now, he has gone back on that theory too. “No credible evidence has been presented to substantiate the claim of the company’s involvement in the alleged incident,” he said. Mr Kaspersky vehemently denies the allegation. ![]() For one, the initial report by the Wall Street Journal alleged the events occurred in 2015 Kaspersky describes a the series of events as happening in late 2014.īut the bigger unknown is whether and how Kaspersky’s acknowledged discovery and acquisition of NSA hacking tools resulted in Russian intelligence agencies discovering the NSA contractor, and targeting him for further, apparently successful, attacks. Kaspersky Lab’s narrative matches with the initial allegations in a number of ways, but leaves some puzzling discrepancies. Nothing was shared with anyone and no further detections from this user have been received.” ![]() “The analyst who received the archive reported it to me and the decision was made to delete the archive from all the company’s systems. Speaking to the Guardian, Eugene Kaspersky, the company’s founder and chief executive, said that from there, the issue was elevated directly to him. This time, because the hacking tools were “new variants”, the antivirus made use of a second security feature that the contractor had enabled, uploading the file to Kaspersky Lab for analysis.Įugene Kaspersky, the Russian founder and chief executive of Kaspersky Lab, which finds itself at the centre of storm over spying. But it also detected some NSA hacking tools, again flagging them as malware. When the user turned his antivirus software back on, and “scanned the computer multiple times”, it correctly detected and blocked the malware. “The malware dropped from the trojanised keygen was a full blown backdoor, which may have allowed third parties access to the user’s machine.” “The user appears to have downloaded and installed pirated software on his machines, as indicated by an illegal Microsoft Office activation key generator,” Kaspersky says. On 4 October 2014, it appears that the contractor turned the antivirus software back on – because he had downloaded and installed some malware while trying to pirate Microsoft Office. Some time after that, the contractor apparently disabled the Kaspersky antivirus software, the company says, but is unable to pinpoint the exact date as that information is not logged. But the timeline it lays out is one of multiple serious security errors on the part of the user, believed to be an NSA contractor.Īccording to Kaspersky’s report, the contractor was using the company’s home antivirus software when it detected a piece of malware attributed to the “Equation Group” (the security firm’s internal codename for what is believed to be the NSA’s hacking team) on 11 September 2014. Kaspersky Lab does not dispute that it discovered hacking tools on the computer of a user of one of its consumer antivirus products. ![]()
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