Sanctions scandal: Kaspersky Lab against 17 US intelligence services

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

As you know, in 2017, the United States began to impose personal sanctions against Kaspersky Lab, accusing the company of working with Russian spies, but at the same time hiding one curious fact from the public.

In other words, in mid-2016, the Russian IT giant made 17 US special services look like complete fools. In view of this, it is not surprising that a year after the assistance provided, the company found itself at the center of the sanctions scandal …

Inflated possibilities

As it became known recently, the US National Security Agency faced a large and dangerous crisis several years ago. He found that someone had stolen 50 TB of classified data from the department, other special services and other government agencies over the past twenty years. This was the largest leak of non-public material in the history of the United States.

All the power of the Western intelligence community was thrown into the search for the daring "mole", its own internal monitoring systems, the government, investigators, special departments and federal services were involved. And already in 2016, with great fanfare throughout the country, it was announced that a certain Harold Martin - a former employee of the NSA contractor company - was the culprit of the "big scam." In total, the detainee received 10 years of imprisonment for each of the 19 episodes imputed to him, that is, a total of about two centuries of imprisonment.

High-ranking participants in the "chase" received medals, promotions, and the media spread PR about how well the American special and law enforcement system worked. Suddenly, three years later, on January 9, 2019, thunder rumbled on the pages of the authoritative edition of Politico. With reference to sources in the American special services, the newspaper reported that Martin was exposed not by the American Themis, but by a single company from a country "hostile" to the United States that was subjected to sanctions. And she did it without any fanfare …

“All these years, we thought that Harold was caught thanks to the latest methods of American intelligence,” the media reported. "And now it turns out that this arrest looks like it proves that US special services are not good for anything."

As it turned out, the "Hollywood" arrest of the former NSA contractor in 2016 only happened because a Russian cybersecurity IT company pointed out the threat to the United States. And she did it on a voluntary basis.

On the trail of bread crumbs

As soon as the news that someone had stolen about 500 million pages of classified documents, including data on US military operations, was trumpeted in the world media, Kaspersky Lab decided to conduct its own investigation. As a result, the Moscow-based company found on its servers several suspicious messages from a user named "HAL 999999999".

In a different situation, no one would have paid attention to letters with similar content and the postscript "The offer is valid for three weeks", you never know jokes about a public company, but it was at that moment that the anonymous hacker group Shadow Brokers released hacking tools for free access. previously stolen from the NSA. An auction was announced on the network for their quick sale. Assuming that the described events may be related, the employees of "Kaspersky" delved into the question.

A similar pseudonym was soon found on one of the foreign dating sites, the profile of which contained a photo. From the photograph, the Laboratory found matches with a certain Martin and information about his place of residence - Annapolis, Maryland. Then, on the social network Linkedin, a page of a person named Hal Martin was found working in the field of information security. Putting it all together, the company realized they needed to add one more piece.

Then it was decided to check one American corporation under the name Booz Allen Hamilton. She was notable for the fact that she was also an NSA contractor and, in addition, it was in her that the notorious Edward Snowden worked at one time. The idea paid off, and as a result, the sought-after person showed up on the lists of its employees under the name Harold Martin.

Apparently, “Laboratory” was prompted to the decision to pass the conclusions made to the US intelligence services by the idea that in this way the company would be able to prove its innocence to the Russian intelligence services. Protect yourself from sanctions by showing that it does not violate US claims and does not threaten Washington. However, they clearly did not understand in what categories the White House actually thinks.

Self-exclusivity syndrome

On August 22, 2016, a Kaspersky Lab employee contacted an NSA representative and gave him all the information collected on Martin, and on August 27, 2016, the FBI made an "unexpected" breakthrough in the case. The suspect was captured.

If Kaspersky thought that this step would remove suspicions from himself, he was deeply mistaken. The United States took the Russian move as a public insult. In their understanding, this is a real puncture, a powerful blow to the faith of Americans in their own exclusivity. It’s no joke if a single Russian company really turned out to be able to do in a few days what the American Sistema failed to implement in a few years. According to politicians from the United States, such a version of history simply cannot exist, which means that the Laboratory made this move in conjunction with the Russian special services. This version satisfied the United States much more.

As a result, instead of hoping that this gesture of assistance would help Kaspersky protect its company from sanctions, everything turned out exactly the opposite. And it is not surprising, because, as is known from history, only friendship can be worse than enmity with the Anglo-Saxons.

Already in July 2017, the US presidential administration excluded the Russian antivirus company from the list of software and hardware suppliers. The products were no longer approved for use in government agencies. And two months later, the American authorities ordered the removal of all solutions of the "Laboratory" from all budgetary institutions of the state.

The founder of the company, Evgeny Kaspersky, in every possible way denied any connection with the Russian special services, arguing that he would immediately withdraw the business from Russia if he was approached with a proposal to spy on clients. But no one listened to his words, because otherwise they would have to admit that one company from Russia can sometimes outweigh all the capabilities of the American special services.

Kaspersky's willingness to cooperate with the American authorities on various investigations has not borne fruit. And even the unprecedented gesture of the Russian developer, who decided in 2017 to disclose to independent experts around the world the source code of its products (including the software update code and anti-virus databases), did not bring anything.

Unfortunately, this example proves once again that, for all its excellent level, many of our unique professionals in the private industries still do not understand what political America is. They cannot accept that the Anglo-Saxons in the world arena do not observe any rules, and that the fulfillment of their requirements does not give any guarantees.

As if as evidence to this conclusion, in May 2018, the US authorities finally rejected all claims of the Russian company, which appealed the sanctions in court. And at the same time, on the "advice" from Washington, the European Parliament in June of the same year adopted a similar resolution recognizing Kaspersky products as "malicious".

The West is accustomed to its "exclusiveness", and therefore is sincerely offended by the fact that Russia perceives it as an arrogant fiction …