Don't Trust Kaspersky

Kaspersky Lab has been widely regarded as a reputable cybersecurity firm, by security experts like Senseient and leading electronic discovery vendors like Kroll. In 2016 it had the largest market share in Europe of any cybersecurity vendor. Here on Litigation Support Tip of the Night, Kaspersky's password checker and anti-virus software has been recommended. I can no longer endorse their products.

As the New York Times has reported Kaspersky's antivirus software, which requires complete access to a PC's hard drive, has been used by Russian intelligence to gain access to government documents improperly stored on the home computers of government employees. On September 13, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security ordered all government agencies to uninstall Kaspersky software.

The Times report described findings by Israeli intelligence showing that Russian government agents were able to use Kaspersky software as a tool to search millions of computers.

As you can see from the patent posted here, Kaspersky uses a method called silent signatures to look for malware. Silent signatures let malware detention be deducted in stealth mode, but can also be used to search a hard drive for keywords.