Whoops! Elections Quebec uses controversial Russian software


Elections Quebec will stop using controversial Russian security software after our Investigation Bureau pointed out to it yesterday “a considerable risk of computer attack” raised by Germany.

The organization that oversees the polls in the province has been using Kaspersky antivirus since at least 2013, according to a public contract that we have identified.

On Tuesday, Germany recommended replacing all of this company’s antivirus with other protection products for security reasons.

She alleges that Kaspersky could be spied on by the Kremlin during a cyber operation, or be instrumentalized to attack systems or its own customers.

“We are going to stop using it,” Elections Quebec said laconically yesterday by email, in response to our questions.

In recent years, cases of Kremlin interference in elections around the world have been widely documented, including during the 2016 US presidential election won by Donald Trump. Russian hackers have notably infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails and attacked local electoral systems.

In the wake of this saga, in 2017 the United States accused Kaspersky of having ties to the Russian secret service. A National Security Agency (NSA) contractor had been hacked by a Russian, who had obtained sensitive files via Kaspersky antivirus.

A law was then signed to ban all products of this company from American government organizations.

Several states then followed suit in the United States. Among other things, Britain has warned its government organizations to avoid using Kaspersky for “national security” reasons.

Shortly after, Lithuania and the Netherlands announced that they had in turn banned the software. The European Union in 2018 recommended that its members avoid using it.

Quebec, on the other hand, did not follow this movement. In addition to Elections Quebec, other government organizations use this software. Our Bureau of Investigation discovered nine public contracts in connection with Kaspersky.

Cégep Limoilou confirmed yesterday that the Russian software was installed to protect its workstations, servers and “traffic from the internet”.

For its part, the Cégep de Chicoutimi concluded a contract in July related to the software, installed on “servers and workstations”.

Télé-Québec, Cégep Heritage and the English-Montreal and Samares school boards have also entered into Kaspersky-related contracts over the past decade.

Télé-Québec began migrating to another software several months ago and English-Montreal no longer uses Kaspersky services.

Despite our requests, it was not possible yesterday to find out whether the other organizations were still calling on the Russian computer giant.

Kaspersky was co-founded in 1997 by wealthy Russian businessman Eugene Kaspersky.

On Tuesday, the company reacted to the German warning by calling it “political”. The firm assured that it had no connection with the Russian government.

In 2018, our Investigation Bureau discovered that Elections Quebec was the victim of a computer attack during the provincial election campaign and erased the evidence without informing the police.

WHO IS EUGENE KASPERSKY


SPAIN-TELECOM-WMC





Photo: AFP

◆ Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, a computer security company, in 1997.

◆ He was educated in a school of the KGB, the secret services of the USSR.

◆ He once had the FBI as a client.

◆ Several journalistic investigations allege for 10 years that he has links with the Russian government, which is denied by the company.



Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca

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