[Dailydave] Profiles in courage: Eugene Kaspersky

[Dave Aitel]

So in Ottawa <http://www.countermeasure2012.com/> this month the first
part of my keynote is on "Profiles in Courage" and one of the people
highlighted is Eugene Kaspersky. Of course, you have to hold Eugene to a
higher standard of bravery as none of the other people in the talk are
billionaires with Russian military uniforms in their closet
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/6/>.

A good example is yesterday's announcement on the Kaspersky Labs website
detailing a "miniFlame" and all their research into the trojan, which
they have painted as a sophisticated computer espionage tool. Compare
their long paper
<http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792247/miniFlame_aka_SPE_Elvis_and_his_friends>
to Symantec's
<http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/w32flamerb-additional-module-discovered>
tiny blurb on the same subject. And this is of course just one example
of many <http://www.securelist.com/en/blog?topic=199380362> of Kaspersky
being well in the lead of the industry in attacking that particular
team's work products.

Below is a screenshot  that I think illustrates the point (as is funny
to boot).


Yes, after a seven part documentary on Duqu and Stuxnet, the Internet
Threat Level should be 1. Perhaps it wrapped over? :>

I think the main part of the courage here is that everyone involved
knows just how casually the team who wrote "Duqu" could use the
Kaspersky AV code signing key to sign their next driver (this would be
highly amusing). But Eugene's personal blog, media appearances, and
twitter feed only press the point. Is it possible he took it personally
that some of his customers were infected for 5 years without him knowing?

And of course this morning he announced on his personal blog
<http://eugene.kaspersky.com/2012/10/16/kl-developing-its-own-operating-system-we-confirm-the-rumors-and-end-the-speculation/>that
his company is developing a "secure operating system" for industrial
control systems.

It goes without saying that Kaspersky's industrial control OS is not
going to end up on US critical infrastructure. But it probably will end
up elsewhere in the world (Russia, for example). And what Eugene is
saying is that he thinks he can beat the Stuxnet team at their own game,
and on their own turf.

That's a truly admirable level of hutzpa. Even for a billionaire.

-dave

-- INFILTRATE --
The world's best offensive information security conference.
April 2013 in Miami Beach
www.infiltratecon.com
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