Is it still safe to use Kaspersky?

[bcfc0703]

Considering the state of the world at the moment is it still safe to use Kaspersky anti virus as it is Russian? Mine just auto renewed but it made me consider changing it. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Tetras]

My thoughts are:

"We have no evidence that the Russian state intends to suborn Russian commercial products and services to cause damage to UK interests, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The war has proven many widely-held beliefs wrong and the situation remains highly unpredictable. In our view, it would be prudent to plan for the possibility that this could happen. In times of such uncertainty, the best approach is to make sure your systems are as resilient as you can reasonably make them.

...

Individuals using Kaspersky AV​

We've had enquiries from people worried about their home IT. It almost certainly remains the case that nearly all individuals in the UK (and many enterprises) are not going to be targeted by Russian cyber attack, regardless of whether they use Russian products and services.

If your personal laptop uses Kaspersky AV (or other products):

• it's highly unlikely to be directly targeted
• it’s safe to turn on and use at the moment

However, you may need to move to a new AV product if Kaspersky itself becomes subject to sanctions, since the AV product would likely stop getting updates (and AV software is only effective if it's updated regularly)."

Use of Russian technology products and services following the invasion of Ukraine

Cyber security – even in a time of global unrest – remains a balance of different risks. Ian Levy, the NCSC's Technical Director, explains why.

www.ncsc.gov.uk

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

yet barclays bank stopped using quite a while ago
they actually used to give me it for free
maybe theyre just over cautious
or maybe not

 

[malachi]

Wouldn't bother with Kaspersky now. I stopped after Barclays giving it away but by that time Windows Defender was good enough and still is now.

I don't see the need to use an 3rd party AV on a Windows platform anymore.

 

[Rroff]

I don't see the need to use an 3rd party AV on a Windows platform anymore.

TBH the only time I'd bother with 3rd party AV or similar is if the system is shared with or owned by someone without reasonable IT proficiency - if you have reasonable experience with computers, etc. then Windows Defender alone is fine - though I'm starting to find it a bit annoying with more recent changes in Windows 10/11 - with the newer AI enhancements it falsely identifies some of my own programming/project files as malware and tries to take executive action against it sometimes with the file completely disappearing instead of being quarantined even to the point I'm starting to think about going without Windows Defender even just not acceptable behaviour.

Same with automatic sample submission - even some executables and scripts can contain personal or confidential information - another unacceptable approach IMO - sure manual sample submission can be a crucial tool - technically some of the stuff I work on could result in a disciplinary/losing my job if it was uploaded to MS and was somehow leaked even as a partial sample.

Dunno how much truth there is to this but:

In 2015, Kaspersky disclosed that they had detected a suite of NSA surveillance and hacking tools associated with the mysterious "Equation Group."

These tools were reportedly later uploaded from an NSA contactor's PC who had brought the tools home and stored them on his home PC, running Kaspersky antivirus. When the software detected them as suspicious, the antivirus program uploaded them to Kaspersky's servers, which at that time, were in Russia.