Israel Claims Russia Spied on Them and the United States Through Kaspersky Tools
One of the United States' allies, Israel, recently condemned the Russian government for allegedly spying on them through the Kaspersky security firm. It added that Russia might have already hacked the U.S. National Security Agency.
On the other hand, these incidents have been tagged as "overlapping" works of intelligence units from the countries involved.
The Israeli intelligence unit reportedly watched as Russia employed hackers to scour through computer networks worldwide with the goal of exposing American intelligence tools and programs, according to a report from the New York Times. They then told the United States about Russia's intrusion.
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The report added that the Israeli government had actually learned of Russia's hacking activities a couple of years ago and what gave them away was their alleged use of the Kaspersky antivirus software.
Kaspersky is a Russia-based security firm with up to 400 million subscribers worldwide.
On the other hand, it is also important to note that just last week, a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed the possibility that the Russian government could have "exploited" the Kaspersky antivirus tools and used them as a disguise to spy on U.S. agencies and to particularly gain access to NSA's classified files.
However, a staff from the NSA would not confirm if the reports were accurate.
In the middle of the cyberwar between these countries, Kaspersky's name and its tools' credibility have been thrown too much into the conversation with the allegations. In fact, people working in U.S. government agencies or facilities have been prohibited from using any product from the security firm.
Meanwhile, to their defense, Kaspersky denied any allegations that they had aided in any state-level espionage activity.
In a recent statement, the company argued: "Kaspersky Lab has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts, and contrary to erroneous reports, Kaspersky Lab software does not contain any undeclared capabilities such as backdoors as that would be illegal and unethical."
It added: "For 20 years, Kaspersky Lab has been focused on protecting people and organizations from these cyberthreats — its headquarters' location doesn't change that mission."
