Kaspersky Hacked

[Anak]

The Russian-based security firm Kaspersky has fallen victim to the cyber criminals it tries to protect users against, according to reports.

More here: UPDATED: Kaspersky hit by cyber criminals? | IT PRO

 

[bobtran]

Glad I use Avast.

Interesting note from article:

“Kaspersky Lab also wants to confirm that no individual’s details were compromised from the company's web servers during this attack.”

If their machines were compromised by bogus AV downloads as a result of the re-direct to malware sites and downloads I don't see how the preceding statement contains more than a shred of fact, in fact ALL their personal data may have been compromised and the statement is a corporate hail mary attempt to avoid the appearance of fault by claiming that the data in THEIR SERVERS was not compromised (Really? The black hats didn't gain access to redirect the web servers? Really?).

What I want to know is: "What do these public relations reps use for brains".....certainly not the same grey matter that the rest of us use, that's for sure.

 

[Darician]

The problem is if they don't say that, then you get not only the press but a bunch of other individuals throwing out accusations of why the company hasn't said anything. It's one of those situations where the company's going to look bad regardless of what it does.

 

[Lee]

Just goes to show . . .

 

[malexous]

Glad I use Avast.

Most (all?) major anti-virus vendors websites have been hacked (some multiple times), including Avast! Avast Forum Hacked, Users at Risk! - The attackers attempted to install malware - Softpedia

 

[mickey megabyte]

 

[bobtran]

Glad I use Avast.

Most (all?) major anti-virus vendors websites have been hacked (some multiple times), including Avast! Avast Forum Hacked, Users at Risk! - The attackers attempted to install malware - Softpedia

That was the Avast user-group Forums that was hacked, not the AV Update servers. However.....point taked....it can happen to anyone. Still I am glad that I run Avast as I personally have more trust in them. I do think that the MSE product is pretty good in conjuction with the Malicious Software Removal Tool which I use along side my Avast setup.

Let us all beware and pay attention to the location bar at all times....it just might save your ass one day.

 

[johnwillyums]

Microsoft Security Essentials

 

[housry23]

I use Kaspersky and have for about a year now. I hosted a Windows 7 launch party and one of the package items were a free 1yr subscription to Kaspersky IS for everyone that attends your party. I was very impressed with KIS 2010. It was light, fast and rarely bugged me about anything. It also did a very good job at detecting bad stuff. KIS 2011 is a whole different story. It is a resource hog, which isn't that big of a deal since most newer PC's and laptops have sufficient RAM to handle most anything. It is also very annoying, popping up and asking me this and that. I have changed the settings to mimimum and adjusted this and adjusted that. It also scans every single .exe when launched and takes a long time to do so and this slows any install down to a crawl. It drives me crazy. I could turn this feature off, but then I won't be protected if something is fake and installs something nasty on my machine. If KIS 2011 was as good as 2010 I probably would have renewed my subscription when it was up, but now I think I'll go to MSE. I have tried it and have put it on many families and friends PC so I know it does it's job.

 

[Corrine]

Hacker hits Kaspersky website

Scammers who try to trick victims into downloading fake antivirus software can strike almost anywhere. On Sunday they hit the website of Kaspersky Lab, a well-known antivirus vendor. Someone took advantage of a bug in a Web program used by the Kasperskyusa.com website and reprogrammed it to try and trick visitors into downloading a fake product, Kaspersky confirmed Tuesday. Kaspersky didn't identify the flaw, but said it was in a "third-party application" used by the website.

"As a result of the attack, users trying to download Kaspersky Lab's consumer products were redirected to a malicious website," the antivirus vendor said. The website caused a pop-up window to appear that simulated a virus scan of the user's PC, and offered to install an antivirus program that was in fact bogus.

This is a typical trick for fake-antivirus scammers, who are constantly looking for new ways to trick victims into buying their products. In the past they've been known to pose as legitimate online advertisers and then suddenly switch their ad inventory from legitimate-looking ads to these fake pop-up messages.

Security experts say the safest thing to do when one of these fake antivirus messages pops up is to simply kill the Web browser. On Windows, this can be done by hitting ctrl-alt-delete and ending the browser process in the Task Manager.

According to Kaspersky, its website was redirecting users to the rogue antivirus site for about three-and-a-half hours Sunday. The company did a complete audit of its websites afterwards "to ensure they're running fully updated code."

Complete story at Hacker hits Kaspersky website - Computerworld

 

[Win7User512]

Everyone is susceptible. I use Avast, and have done so for years. Are they perfect? No. No one is.