Dutch govt dropping Kaspersky software over spying fears

The Dutch government is phasing out the use of anti-virus software made by Russian firm Kaspersky Lab amid fears of possible spying, despite vehement denials by the Moscow-based cyber security company.

The Dutch Justice and Security ministry said in a statement late Monday the decision had been taken as a "precautionary measure" in order "to guarantee national security".

But Kaspersky Lab, whose anti-virus software is installed on some 400 million computers worldwide, said Tuesday it was "very disappointed" by the move.

The firm, which is suspected by US authorities of helping the Kremlin's espionage efforts, also announced Tuesday that it was moving its core infrastructure and operations to Switzerland.

"Our new centre in Switzerland will strengthen the proven integrity of Kaspersky Lab's products, (and) significantly improve the resilience of our IT infrastructure to any trust risk -- even theoretical ones," the Russian company said in a statement.

Last year, the US federal government removed Kaspersky from its list of approved vendors, weeks after senior US intelligence agency and law enforcement officials expressed concerns about the safety of its software.

The Netherlands fears Kaspersky's anti-virus software is "deep in systems" and any abuse could "pose a major security risk."

Dutch officials also voiced concern that under Russian law companies such as Kaspersky are "required to cooperate with the Russian government".

But the company hit back saying "Kaspersky Lab has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyber espionage or offensive cyber efforts" and adding it was "being treated as guilty merely due to geopolitical issues."

It said it would try to arrange a meeting soon with the Dutch coordinator for security and counterterrorism to discuss the situation.

Dutch intelligence officials have increasingly warned however that they fear the Kremlin is trying to hack into Dutch companies and manipulate elections here.

"Russia has an active offensive cyber programme focusing on the Netherlands and vital Dutch interests," the ministry warned, adding it had therefore concluded there was a risk of "digital espionage and sabotage."

From Yahoo to Uber, major hacks of data
Paris (AFP) May 15, 2018 - The European Union's new data protection rules, which take effect on May 25, will give people more control over the way their personal information is used online.

They follow scandals involving lax personal data protection procedures such as at Facebook where US-British political research firm Cambridge Analytica was able to harvest the data of 87 million users.

In another case, Grindr, the self-proclaimed world's largest gay dating app, admitted in April to sharing data on its clients' HIV status with third party software vendors.

Such scandals are, however, less frequent than cases in which data are stolen through hacking attacks on websites.

Here are some of the biggest:

- Yahoo, billions hacked -

In what is considered the biggest cyber-attack in history, a 2013 hack affected all three billion accounts at Yahoo.

The disclosure in October 2017 by Verizon, which acquired Yahoo's online assets in June, revised upward the initial estimate of one billion accounts affected.

Yahoo said the stolen user information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data or bank account information.

The disclosure threatened the sale to Verizon, which finally secured a lower price.

Another hacking attack on Yahoo affected some 500 million accounts in 2014 but was only revealed in September 2016, for which its financial arm Altaba was fined $35 million.

- Uber off the road -

The ride-sharing giant was vilified after the hacking in 2016 of data on 57 million of its riders and drivers, unveiled only in November 2017.

It was also criticised for paying the hackers $100,000 to destroy their booty.

Investigations have been opened in the United States and Europe.

- Equifax loses credit -

A breach by major American credit agency Equifax in September 2017 is seen as potentially more damaging than that of Yahoo because of the sensitivity of the data leaked.

Equifax said hackers obtained names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver's licence numbers, potentially exposing victims to identity theft.

It said the breach could have affected more than 147 million US, Canadian and British clients.

The company was sued for having identified but not corrected the breach, for having insufficient security systems and for delaying reporting the problem.

Its chiefs were also suspected of insider trading as they sold shares before the hacking was revealed.

- Password plunder -

In August 2014 online data protection firm Hold Security claimed that Russian hackers had accessed 1.2 billion passwords linked to 420,000 internet sites around the world, from corporate giants to individual accounts.

Hold Security pointed to a group of hackers called CyberVor, which it said had potentially gained access to 500 million e-mail accounts. There was no major fallout from the announcement.

- Taking aim at Target -

The US retail giant was hit by a computer attack in December 2013 that affected 110 million clients.

Seventy million might have lost personal data including names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail accounts, while 40 million bank accounts and credit cards were also put at risk.

- Hottest hack -

In August 2015 hackers calling themselves The Impact Team published nearly 30 gigabytes of files including the names and sexual orientation of people who had signed up with Ashley Madison, a website facilitating extra-marital affairs.

The company's boss stepped down as several suicides in the United States and Canada were linked to the revelations.

Ashley Madison had earlier offered to delete users' personal data for a modest fee but did not.

Related Links
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Black River Systems tapped for SIGINT software
Washington (UPI) May 10, 2018
Black River Systems has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Air Force software in support of signals intelligence collection. The deal, announced Wednesday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $9.3 million under the terms of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory enables Black River Systems to provide the Software Defined Radio. The Air Force said the software will further advance the "body of knowledge in the cyber doma ... read more