Germany warns against Russian anti-virus use

[BreakingDad]

Germany's cyber-security authority has warned against using anti-virus software from Russian headquartered company Kaspersky.

BBC LINK

I don't personally use Kaspersky, but it got me wondering, what other Russian Network products there may be going around?

Adguard (being originally Russian developed), sprung to mind so I did some digging and found their statement (Our history is public knowledge. AdGuard was founded in 2009 in Moscow. Later we moved our HQ to Cyprus as a conscious decision, in order to operate under the EU law). This has reassured me it is, for now, safe to use.

Stay safe.

 

[Yota]

The US federal government blocked the use of Kaspersky in 2017, so this is nothing new to me.

I know you may disagree, but I need to point out that this is a war waged by Putin and his corrupt friends, the Russian people are not at fault, I have seen some hatred of Russians in my life, this is wrong. This forum also has many developers and users from Russia, don't let this hate happen here.

 

[BreakingDad]

@BreakingDad Fixed the font colours for you:

Germany's cyber-security authority has warned against using anti-virus software from Russian headquartered company Kaspersky.

BBC LINK

I don't personally use Kaspersky, but it got me wondering, what other Russian Network products there may be going around?

Adguard (being originally Russian developed), sprung to mind so I did some digging and found their statement (Our history is public knowledge. AdGuard was founded in 2009 in Moscow. Later we moved our HQ to Cyprus as a conscious decision, in order to operate under the EU law). This has reassured me it is, for now, safe to use.

Stay safe.

Thanks, edited back to normal, I have dark theme so didn't realise on white theme the text was not showing.

 

[Paliv]

@BreakingDad Fixed the font colours for you:

Germany's cyber-security authority has warned against using anti-virus software from Russian headquartered company Kaspersky.

BBC LINK

I don't personally use Kaspersky, but it got me wondering, what other Russian Network products there may be going around?

Adguard (being originally Russian developed), sprung to mind so I did some digging and found their statement (Our history is public knowledge. AdGuard was founded in 2009 in Moscow. Later we moved our HQ to Cyprus as a conscious decision, in order to operate under the EU law). This has reassured me it is, for now, safe to use.

Stay safe.

AdGuard's main dev team is still in Moscow, if that is of concern to you.

 

[BreakingDad]

I know you may disagree, but I need to point out that this is a war waged by Putin and his corrupt friends, the Russian people are not at fault, I have seen some hatred of Russians in my life, this is wrong. This forum also has many developers and users from Russia, don't let this hate happen here.

For the record, I 100% agree that the Russian people are not at fault, and they are as much victims of the corrupt regime as anyone. This post was not intended to become political, and was merely a security warning from a highly regarded source.

 

[BreakingDad]

AdGuard's main dev team is still in Moscow, if that is of concern to you.

Having read their statements, and the fact it's open source, i'm ok for now. That said I am wondering if going back to pi-hole is a safer option. Perhaps a bit foil hat of me.

I like the fact adguard blocks chosen services and forces safe browsing/restricted mode with ease. On Pi Hole it's a bit more complex, and might require a dual pi hole set up to achieve what I want to do.

 

[Yota]

For the record, I 100% agree that the Russian people are not at fault, and they are as much victims of the corrupt regime as anyone. This post was not intended to become political, and was merely a security warning from a highly regarded source.

I'm sorry, I've been a little too nervous lately, I was just on the phone this morning with a former client of mine, a friend in Moscow, and we had a long chat about politics, the current situation, etc. He conveyed a lot of concerns to me, so please forgive me.

A good suggestion is to choose an open source product, if you're worried about that, but open source isn't 100% safe either, because 99.99999% of users don't go to review source code because there's so much code out there, but you can review Commits and changes made since the last release, the code is small enough and easy to review.

 

[BreakingDad]

I'm sorry, I've been a little too nervous lately

No problem at all, I understand, you don't know me. I to have a friend in Moscow, that I've known since I was 15, he moved there from my country some years ago and married a Russian girl. I fear for his family and I cannot communicate with him well over the internet, so I look forward to him one day returning here where we can speak directly.

Yes, the reason I trust open source is because although I don't personally review the code, I figure that other would and notify about anything nerfarious.

Have a good day and peace to you and your friend.

 

[Yota]

No problem at all, I understand, you don't know me. I to have a friend in Moscow, that I've known since I was 15, he moved there from my country some years ago and married a Russian girl. I fear for his family and I cannot communicate with him well over the internet, so I look forward to him one day returning here where we can speak directly.

Yes, the reason I trust open source is because although I don't personally review the code, I figure that other would and notify about anything nerfarious.

Have a good day and peace to you and your friend.

Unprecedented internet censorship is happening in Russia, so that's why it might be hard for you to hear from your friends, if your friends know technology, let your friends use VPN + Signal to keep in touch, this is how I keep in touch with my friend, but I don't know the specifics, all I know is that in some underground forums in Russia there are users sharing free VPNs that help bypass censorship.

Also, don't trust anyone, even open source, don't rely on anyone because others may be lazy too, my advice is if you care about security, you should always review the code yourself, if you don't have time, just review the code since your last trust release with all the changes so far.

Bring peace to your friend and you as well, Stay safe and have a great day.

 

[BreakingDad]

Unprecedented internet censorship is happening in Russia,

It's not so much that, it's fear of him getting in to trouble for speaking candidly. We can communicate through sms and skype.

Thank you for your kind words.

 

[follower]

Chinese and Russian apps hurt you guys always. That's why I never use any of them.

 

[Tech9]

Chinese and Russian apps hurt you guys always.

Right. Everyone - uninstall Entware and forget about Asuswrt-Merlin add-ons using it. Netgear folks - back to stock firmware.

 

[nickie]

a few months ago I read an article from a security expert stating that the current Microsoft Defender, albeit with fewer features when compared with the paid anti-virus, is as highly efficient as the competition. I can't recall where I read it but this review (https://www.trustedreviews.com/versus/windows-defender-vs-third-party-antivirus-4206380) reaches similar conclusions. The conclusion was that, in conjunction to using a decent and updated browser (which are currently the most used vector to spread virus and so on), Microsoft Defender provided a as good protection as the paid-versions.

 

[BreakingDad]

a few months ago I read an article from a security expert stating that the current Microsoft Defender, albeit with fewer features when compared with the paid anti-virus, is as highly efficient as the competition. I can't recall where I read it but this review (https://www.trustedreviews.com/versus/windows-defender-vs-third-party-antivirus-4206380) reaches similar conclusions. The conclusion was that, in conjunction to using a decent and updated browser (which are currently the most used vector to spread virus and so on), Microsoft Defender provided a as good protection as the paid-versions.

Correct, defender + malwarebytes premium is my weapon of choice, along with skynet, trend, and adguardhome

 

[Yota]

Right. Everyone - uninstall Entware and forget about Asuswrt-Merlin add-ons using it. Netgear folks - back to stock firmware.

Don't tell him that Netgear outsourced the firmware to Delta Networks, with a lot of the development work coming from the Delta Networks branch in Shanghai, China.

 

[Tech9]

He is perhaps using own project hand made routers running on own software. Everything else is Made in China.

 

[sfx2000]

Correct, defender + malwarebytes premium is my weapon of choice, along with skynet, trend, and adguardhome

I agree - defender is more than good enough...

The thing with third-party antivirus on Windows, for them to do the job effectively, they need to have "better than admin" rights, which they usually self-assign without really mentioning it.

The Kaspersky thing with the US Govt - IIRC, there was an accidental disclosure of classified info that was exfiltrated as an infected document for review (the virus, not the actual content). The rest of the story was that it was a personal computer, not govt issued, at least that it what I heard.

 

[sfx2000]

Chinese and Russian apps hurt you guys always. That's why I never use any of them.

Uninstall Linux while you're at it - there are many FOSS contributors from Russia and the People's Republic of China - both in the GNU space, as well as the BSD's...

Have fun finding a router - something that runs VXWorks should do the job

 

[follower]

Uninstall Linux while you're at it - there are many FOSS contributors from Russia and the People's Republic of China - both in the GNU space, as well as the BSD's...

Have fun finding a router - something that runs VXWorks should do the job

I don't use any of FOSS from China and Russia. People's Republic of China? What is that? You call the Communist as Republic?
You gotta be kidding me Nobody calls china as People's Republic of China in the world except chinese. Only chinese call their country as People's Republic of China. Are you one of them?

 

[Paliv]

I don't use any of FOSS from China and Russia. People's Republic of China? What is that? You call the Communist as Republic?
You gotta be kidding me Nobody calls china as People's Republic of China in the world except chinese. Only chinese call their country as People's Republic of China. Are you one of them?

This is a bit much.