Kapersky Anti-Virus and Why the Government Says "Necht" and more on Tech Talk With Craig Peterson today on Maine's WGAN Saturday Show [10-5-19]

 

A couple of years ago the Department of Homeland Security warned Federal Agencies and Government offices to remove Kapersky Anti-Virus.  They gave them a year to get it done.  I bet you can guess where this is going.... listen in for the rest of the story.

For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Fortune 500 Companies and Government Agencies Still Using Vulnerable Anti-Virus Products 
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Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

Craig 0:12
Hello, everybody, this is Craig Peterson you're listening to me on WGAN radio, as well as online at Craig Peterson dot com.

Hey, in case you missed it, that's what this whole security reboot guy and with all of the special tips and tricks and things that you should be doing to get a quick start on your security again, you can get it at Craig Peterson comm slash Quick Start, I have only ever included this in paid courses. So if you get it today, you will be guaranteed to have it. I don't know how long we'll leave this up for, we're probably going to include an updated version of this in my next course will we'll see how this all goes. Okay, on to Kaspersky. If you have been involved with security for a while you know who these guys are. This is a Russian company that has been well known for producing some pretty darn good anti virus software, some good security software over the years. They were the one the first time in fact, I think if I remember right, that had this type of security available for the Linux world for Unix machines. Nobody else had it. I remember looking for it and trying to figure out what I could use for my big servers because we were running a version of Unix. I think we're running free BSD at the time. And we also had some Linux machines, and nobody had anything, but Kaspersky did. And Kaspersky also had some great stuff for Windows. And when you were comparing Kaspersky to some of the other antivirus software out there, they were they were really, really hot, they were near the top of a number of these different list of some of the software you could use that you could trust to provide you with some reasonable security. And so Kaspersky started spreading, and it spread, it spread, it spread to people in their businesses, it spread to home machines, and it spread into government in a very, very big way. Now, now things have changed, it's still kind of everywhere. And the US government ordered its agencies to remove all of the Kaspersky software. And the same thing was supposed to have been done by the fortune 500 companies out there, which, to me makes a lot of sense. Because as it turns out, Kaspersky apparently has some pretty decent ties to the Kremlin. And there are allegations that Kaspersky has been spying on and stealing data. Now, this is a bit of a problem. It's kind of like in China dealing with almost any Chinese company, most of them are owned by the People's Liberation Army, which of course, is controlled by this socialist government of China. And they have to give information to the government whenever the government asks for it. And much the same is true. You know, Russia, in some ways, has a lot of freedom. In many ways, it's still a socialist government, just like it was as when it was part of the Soviet Union.

So there's warnings up there right now, from the Department of State on out, warning everybody not to use this now. It was in September 2017. So about two years ago, the Department of Homeland Security issued a binding operational directive to remove all caps, Kaspersky, these antivirus software from their systems. Now this is course was all federal executive branch departments and agencies. And they had to start by identifying it and then removing it and they were given 90 days to comply. And government contractors were given until October 2018. Well do the math. That's been two years since the federal government put the directive out. And it's been a year since federal contractors. Were supposed to remove all of Kaspersky labs antivirus software. Now I still see it for sale. I went to one of the local big box retailers and I went over to where they're selling computer software. And sure enough, there's all of this useless antivirus software. And right next to the useless antivirus software was Kaspersky labs antivirus software, which is less than useless, because it apparently actually does do some spying on us. So here's the statement from the Department of Homeland Security. Kaspersky antivirus products and solutions provide broad access to files and elevated privileges on the computers on which this software is installed, which can be exploited by malicious cyber actors to compromise those Information Systems very, very big deal. Now they are they've been analyzed. There's a couple of companies that have been looking at the federal government computers and some of the contractor computer systems remotely. And they have found some results are talking about being concerning. One of these companies is called expanse. And they're saying that they detected Kaspersky software residing on at least two government military networks, eight government, non military networks and 14 defense contractor networks. Additionally, and this is according to an article at CSO online that you'll find online at Craig Peterson calm additionally expands detected the prevalent use of Kaspersky software in leading commercial organizations, including 19 financial services companies, and 17 healthcare businesses in the fortune 500. Now, of course, you cannot see all of the computers inside these networks. And so their numbers are not entirely accurate, but they are accurate. At least it looks like from what I'm able to tell here. They are accurate from the standpoint of there are at least that many who, which is very, very concerning. So I brought this up, not just because it's the federal government falling, falling down again, right there isn't that seemed to be what they always do. But it's also fortune 500 companies that they're finding are still using Kaspersky all the way on down through the medium companies and the small companies and the small office, Home Office. And Shame on them. Also, on some of these big box retailers that are still selling Kaspersky labs, anti virus software. So I'm pleading with you right now. Check your antivirus software, if it's Kaspersky, that's spelled KASPRSKY, Casper sky, if you will. If you have Kaspersky antivirus, you're going to want to uninstalled that immediately. Now, you still want to have some sort of anti malware software, if your business, you really should reach out to me at Craig Peterson calm and based on what your businesses I can point you in the right direction. If you are a home user,

I'm going to have a hardening course available here in just a couple of weeks. And I really advise you guys to keep an eye out for that hardening course, I'll be announcing it on my email list, you'll know about it, you know all of the details if you're on it. But the idea here is, if you're a home user, you can get to about 95% protection without having to pay anybody for any software on any ongoing basis. If you're a business things are different because as a business, you are held to a higher level than a home user is. So there's a lot more that you have to do. In fact, there is not a business right now, out there, period, none. That does not have to comply with cyber security regulations. If you haven't single employee, if you take a single credit card, you are already under various regulations about cyber security. So it's a lot different for businesses, sometimes keep your ear to the ground. In fact, what you might do is get my quick start guide. And when you do that, you'll sign up for my email newsletter. So you'll find out when that hardening course is going to be released. So this is going to tell you how to harden your windows installs. It's great for small businesses it's great for small office, Home Office. And you can get all of this just by going to Craig Peterson. com slash Quick Start. Craig Peterson. com slash Quick Start. And by all means get rid of that Kaspersky software if you have it, business or otherwise, when we get back we talked a little bit about problems on Android. What Android problems Craig, don't you tell us not to use Android. You're listening to Craig bitter son right here on WGAN. And online at Craig Peterson calm

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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