• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Pro-Ukraine hacktivists claim cyberattack on Russian Airline Aeroflot that caused the cancellation of +100 flights

 | 

Seychelles Commercial Bank Reported Cybersecurity Incident

 | 

Microsoft uncovers macOS flaw allowing bypass TCC protections and exposing sensitive data

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Cisco ISE and PaperCut NG/MF flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Critical WordPress Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K+ sites to full takeover

 | 

Scattered Spider targets VMware ESXi in using social engineering

 | 

China-linked group Fire Ant exploits VMware and F5 flaws since early 2025

 | 

Allianz Life data breach exposed the data of most of its 1.4M customers

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

 | 

Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

 | 

Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

 | 

Unpatched flaw in EoL LG LNV5110R cameras lets hackers gain Admin access

 | 

Koske, a new AI-Generated Linux malware appears in the threat landscape

 | 

Mitel patches critical MiVoice MX-ONE Auth bypass flaw

 | 

Coyote malware is first-ever malware abusing Windows UI Automation

 | 

SonicWall fixed critical flaw in SMA 100 devices exploited in Overstep malware attacks

 | 

DSPM & AI Are Booming: $17.87B and $4.8T Markets by 2033

 | 

Stealth backdoor found in WordPress mu-Plugins folder

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Cyber Crime
  • Malware
  • Kaspersky accused of sabotage to harm competitors

Kaspersky accused of sabotage to harm competitors

Pierluigi Paganini August 15, 2015

According to two former employees the Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky has faked malware to harm competitors and cause false positive in their solutions.

Two former employees, who requested anonymity, revealed that Kaspersky Lab tried to trick antivirus solutions of its competitors into flagging more false positives.

Two anonymous former Kaspersky Lab employees told Reuters that disconcerting story related to the popular Russian security firm. According to the employees the antivirus solutions of Kaspersky’s competitors were flagging benign files as malware, disabling or deleting important documents of their customers.

Critical Infrastructure KAspersky Cyber Security Summint 2014

Among the targeted security firms, according to the two former employees, there are AVG Technologies, Avast Software, and Microsoft.

Kaspersky Lab denied the claims.

“Our company has never conducted any secret campaign to trick competitors into generating false positives to damage their market standing. Such actions are unethical, dishonest and their legality is at least questionable.” is the official reply of Kaspersky Lab.

According to the sources, the attacks were ordered by Eugene Kaspersky in person, to retaliate against smaller antivirus solutions that were gaining market share by aping Kaspersky software.

“Eugene considered this stealing,” said one of the former employees. “It was decided to provide some problems” for rivals, “It is not only damaging for a competing company but also damaging for users’ computers.“

According to Reuters, executives at major security firms, including Microsoft, AVG and Avast previously reported that unknown parties had tried to induce false positives in recent years, but there is no comment on the recent revelations.

According to the former employees, Kaspersky dedicated a team to the sabotage operations that reverse-engineered antivirus solutions of the competitors in order to deceive them.

The employees said Kaspersky Lab manipulated files in order to cause false positives in competitors’ antivirus solution for more than 10 years, with the peak period between 2009 and 2013.

How to sabotage the rivals?

One of the techniques adopted by Kaspersky consists in the injection of the malicious code in an important piece of software commonly found in PCs so that the file appears as infected. The Kaspersky engineers that sent the “doctored file” anonymously to the VirusTotal online service.

When rivals’ antivirus systems examined the doctored file it would be flagged as potentially malicious.

Kaspersky denied the unfair practice, telling to the Reuters it had been a victim of a similar attack in November 2012

“when an “unknown third party” manipulated Kaspersky into misclassifying files from Tencent (0700.HK), Mail.ru (MAILRq.L) and the Steam gaming platform as malicious.” states the Reuters.

According to the former employees, Microsoft was targeted by Kaspersky because rival antivirus firms follow it in the malware classification.

Kaspersky confirmed the improvement of its algorithms to defend against false virus samples, regarding the case it believed no antivirus company conducted such kind of attacks “as it would have a very bad effect on the whole industry.”

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Kaspersky, antivirus)


facebook linkedin twitter

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 29, 2025
Pro-Ukraine hacktivists claim cyberattack on Russian Airline Aeroflot that caused the cancellation of +100 flights
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 29, 2025
Seychelles Commercial Bank Reported Cybersecurity Incident
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Pro-Ukraine hacktivists claim cyberattack on Russian Airline Aeroflot that caused the cancellation of +100 flights

    Hacktivism / July 29, 2025

    Seychelles Commercial Bank Reported Cybersecurity Incident

    Data Breach / July 29, 2025

    Microsoft uncovers macOS flaw allowing bypass TCC protections and exposing sensitive data

    Hacking / July 29, 2025

    U.S. CISA adds Cisco ISE and PaperCut NG/MF flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

    Security / July 28, 2025

    Critical WordPress Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K+ sites to full takeover

    Security / July 28, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT