Western technology companies, including Cisco, IBM and SAP, are acceding to demands by Moscow for access to closely guarded product security secrets, at a time when Russia has been accused of a growing number of cyber attacks on the West, a Reuters investigation has found.
Russian authorities are asking Western tech companies to allow them to review source code for security products such as firewalls, anti-virus applications and software containing encryption before permitting the products to be imported and sold in the country. The requests, which have increased since 2014, are ostensibly done to ensure foreign spy agencies have not hidden any "backdoors" that would allow them to burrow into Russian systems.
But those inspections also provide the Russians an opportunity to find vulnerabilities in the products' source code - instructions that control the basic operations of computer equipment - current and former U.S. officials and security experts said.
U.S. officials say they have warned firms about the risks of allowing the Russians to review their products' source code, because of fears it could be used in cyber attacks. But they say they have no legal authority to stop the practice unless the technology has restricted military applications or violates U.S. sanctions.
Look I understand that businesses are concerned about their bottom line, and opening up new opportunities in new markets is very seductive, but based on what just happened in 2016 this seems incredibly naive.
I'm sorry let me take that back because naive simply does not cover it.
Volunteering this information is FUCKING STUPID!
The Russians are clearly collecting information in order to find weaknesses in America's cyber security systems, and these companies are simply handing it over to them without a fight.
I don't think they care. It seems to me that cyber companies, especially the behemoth ones, think that they march to a different drummer. I'm from a different generation and I cannot accept that viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
How can foreign adversaries or anybody get you to voluntarily give away secrets and personal information about you that is damaging to you or somebody else?
ReplyDeleteThat is what I want to know, once they get the secrets, which are trade secrets, they can give them to Kaperski.
DeleteSo they really need to be selling this stuff to russia, is the market that big?
Seems like
It boils down to whether you think your company will be damaged more by giving up the company's security or by the lost profits caused by not being able to expand sales into the enemy country in question.
DeleteOOOOHHH FREE APPS!
ReplyDeleteHow can anybody get access to you, to your smartphones, family members, friends and co-workers and then infiltrate their secrets without you or anybody else finding out?
VERY SIMPLE!
JUST GIVE THESE STUPID AMERICANS FREE STUFF!
Stupid Americans does not have the willpower to refuse free stuff.
HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE SMART PHONES?
How many of you can't refuse free apps?
Read Flash Boys by Michael Lewis (2014)if you want to know how skilled the Russian computer "nerds" are who are way out in front of any other country's techs!
ReplyDeleteCheck out in the book what happened to our stock market and the subterfuge that took place in our own country to screw us. No lesson learned?
" a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders. They band together―some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries―to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits. "
DeleteComments:"I learned a while ago, if the first million can't make you happy, that you have to accumulate more, you will never be content. If you have to play the rigged game to add more riches to your money pile that most human beings will never see in their lifetime,"
https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Wall-Street-Revolt/dp/0393351599
I just downloaded it and put it on my list.
DeleteWe cannot know too much about not only what the Russians are up to but also what they're capable of.
Imagine a scenario where Europe, Asia and South America declare war on Russia. Which side would the President of the United States be on?
How many Americans happily gives strangers, companies and foreign adversaries free access to information on their most personal devices just to get free entertaining apps?
ReplyDeleteOkay you keep posting this like it is the same thing as giving a foreign country who hacked your election the source code to make it easier to hack into your company.
DeleteIt's not.
I never do. No free app is worth having some creepy money-making enterprise skulking around in my business looking for a buck.
DeleteI don't.
DeleteI don't do Facebook or Twitter. Not Pinterest or Imagr or Instagram.
I have to do google but haven't provided any info beyond my e-mail and have the security locked as tight as I can. I have "no" marked for all that social crap. I don't want "friends" or to "share".
Profits are more important to those bastards.
ReplyDeleteSymantec has so far refused to comply.
This is all so that the military industrial complex and the corporate state can keep their secret shit in cyber space for free, thus keeping millions of people out of a job and the profits flowing to the one per cent.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the day is coming when cyber space will be so insecure that computers will only be useful for saving lives, entertainment, and emails from Grandma.
How do con artists target their marks? They look for GREED.
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what is at play here. These companies are greedy and if they have to provide a little peak at code to sell their stuff, they'll do it. Stupid as it is. What gets me is the CEOs of those companies that have ignored the warnings of the U.S. Government and gone ahead are also making obscene amounts of money. They are those 1%ers that are fucking us over. This is just another way. Like they care if our elections were hacked. They are thrilled Trump won. They made a sale, got their bonuses and Trump will ensure they keep every penny.
They honestly don't give a shit about anything else. They are all Trumps.