Tick the box to ban

Summary: Symantec, a Windows insecurity firm, is miserably trying to divert attention away from reports about distrust that led to a ban in China

According to many reports this week [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16], China does not trust some US- and Russia-based companies to take care of 'security' in China. It's about time.

Reports focus on two firms, but another one is seemingly affected (Symantec). While Kaspersky (which we occasionally mention here) does not deny the claims, Symantec does strike back and "Says its Products are Still Allowed in China". This is a cleverly-worded denial. Some products are definitely banned, but the "Security software developer Symantec Corporation denied its software has been banned in China." Symantec merely says or emphasises that not everything is banned.

Just to be more specific: "It is important to note that this list is only for certain types of procurement and Symantec products are not banned by the Chinese government."

Kaspersky is hyping up security threats at the moment and Symantec is trying hard to dodge the negative publicity because trust is fundamental to their sales. Symantec, which has strong Microsoft connections and disdain for FOSS, should not be trusted if China does not trust Microsoft (we already know how China feels about the 'new' Microsoft). To quote an IDG report:

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab have become the latest tech firms to be kicked off the Chinese Government's approved list, according to an unconfirmed report in the country's media.

The People's Daily newspaper broke the news at the weekend in a report that claimed that local supplies including Qihoo 360, Venustech, CAJinchen, Beijing Jiangmin and Rising would from now on be the preferred software for antivirus duties.

The news seems to have surprised both firms, which have until now have been approved suppliers for desktop security.

Symantec has been overlooking government back doors such as the ones Microsoft puts in place and lets the US government know about. This is an older debate which made a comeback amid NSA leaks (other antivirus makers seemingly exempt government malware and such, e.g. Stuxnet). Here is Wall Street's press coverage:

That’s a lesson that Microsoft and Symantec are learning right now. An antivirus company from Silicon Valley, Symantec competes in China against local favorites like Beijing-based Qihoo 360 Technology. According to reports by Bloomberg News and the Chinese media, China has instructed government departments to stop buying antivirus software by Symantec and its Moscow-based rival, Kaspersky Lab. Symantec software has backdoors that could allow outside access, according to an order from the Public Security Ministry. Not coincidentally, Qihoo’s New York-traded shares rose 2.7 percent yesterday, following reports of the move against Symantec and Kapersky.

Well, good for them. After being cracked by the NSA they need to secure their systems by better identifying possible moles (in the software sense).

Dan Goodin, who typically slams FOSS over security issues (less severe than in proprietary software), finally writes about Microsoft's best known back doors that it tells the NSA about (Goodin does not mention the NSA connection):

There's a trivial way for drive-by exploit developers to bypass the security sandbox in almost all versions of Internet Explorer, and Microsoft says it has no immediate plans to fix it, according to researchers from Hewlett-Packard.

The exploit technique, laid out in a blog post published Thursday, significantly lowers the bar for attacks that surreptitiously install malware on end-user computers. Sandboxes like those included in IE and Google Chrome effectively require attackers to devise two exploits, one that pierces the sandbox and the other that targets a flaw in some other part of the browser. Having a reliable way to clear the first hurdle drastically lessens the burden of developing sophisticated attacks.

What can Symantec do to stop this other than suggest abandoning Windows (its bread and butter)? Symantec must have known about back doors in the form of IE vulnerabilities, but did it properly protect China from it? No, Symantec makes money from the prevalence of Windows and the company's management is deeply connected to Microsoft's. ⬆