Cybersecurity heavyweights such as Kaspersky Lab have uncovered Russian Government computer espionage campaigns in recent years. The existence of campaigns like these are however classified as state secrets, and therefore dwell in the realm of treason.
Like former US intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden, that leaked a similar program perpetrated by the US Government. The digital security firms have been collecting data by monitoring the infected machines with their software installed on it. However, the scope of these campaigns is not always made clear to the public.
Kaspersky Lab learned of such a hacking strike last year. Afterwards Kaspersky opted to privately notify some of their paying client base about this spying campaign. 5 months later the same report was made public by a British defence contractor BAU. They found that this incident that was privately reported by Kaspersky Lab to be linked to another suspected campaign in Russia. This campaign had mostly infected computers in the Ukraine according to Reuters.
The hesitance Kaspersky has shown with making the reports public could be an indicator of political influence. All be it not direct, it still puts some cybersecurity companies in a precarious position when bidding for Government contracts. IT security company Symantec Corp. together with Kaspersky are trying to break this influence and enforce a totally transparent non bias system.
As the demand for more involved security systems increase some US officials are migrating from the NSA to private cybersecurity companies such as Symantec and Kaspersky Lab. With this intermingling of staff, Government agencies are getting more dependent on the private sector for cybersecurity solutions.
Symantec principal security response manager Vikram Thakur said “We are being completely agnostic to who the malware author may be”
If we are to take Vikram Thakur at his word, it will mean that a company like Symantec will not be bias even against their own country’s spying habits. Several current and former Kaspersky employees still reported that Kaspersky evaded reporting on the last two Russian hacking attacks.
Some might say God and country; others might say we are all citizens of the world. Wherever your political allegiances or the lack thereof lay. We must all adhere to the global laws which in this day and age are governed by electronic signals carried on the information super highway we call the world wide web.
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