Mr. Kaspersky, with Mr. Alonso.

"The world I'm living in, which is the security world, is becoming more and more complicated," Eugene Kaspersky ominously informed us. One would imagine: his Russia-based antivirus company, Kaspersky Labs, essentially announced the new age of cyberwar with the 2010 suggestion that Stuxnet must've been built with nation-state support. The target--Iran's nuclear facilities--made it clear that the U.S. was likely involved (a detail cinched by The New York Times earlier this year).

Mr. Kaspersky was in New York for the launch of a new ad campaign with the somewhat corny title of "Driving Toward Better Online Security," starring Formula One driver Fernando Alonso. (Both men were outfitted in the appropriate shade of Ferrari fire-engine red.)

In person, Mr. Kaspersky comes off as unexpectedly jolly for an antivirus kingpin. That Wired profile had us expecting more of a bear-wrestling Hemingway character. And while he did devote a fair bit of time to waxing poetic about off-the-grid vacations in Russia's remote, volcano-heavy Kamchatka peninsula, Mr. Kaspersky also peppered his points with laugh lines and pulled goofy faces. Even while admitting that yes, he's a paranoid man, he still flashes a Chesire Cat grin.

One exchange during the Q&A period offered a concise example of the tenor of the afternoon.

Reporter, after a good quarter hour listening to Mr. Kaspersky talk about cyber dangers: "You paint these very negative pictures." Mr. Kaspersky: "I'm paranoid!" Reporter: "Is there a positive?" Mr. Kaspersky, relishing the exchange: "Yes. I'm optimistic. We will survive. I don't know how, but we will survive."

After a Formula One-heavy press conference with Mr. Alonso--the highlight of which was the correspondent from Playboy Russia asking what he liked about Russian girls--Mr. Kaspersky and we tech journalists adjourned for a Q&A about online security.

The Woolworth Building peeking out over his shoulder, he opened with a brief overview of the history of hacking. Teens wreaking havoc for the fun of it gave way to cybercriminals. Now, the actors are more sophisticated: "There are criminals, there are hacktivists, maybe government-sponsored guys," he said, adding, "The worst is now there are instances of what I call cyberterrorism." Examples would be the 2007 Estonian Internet blackout and the recent Aramco attack.

"What to do?" he asked rhetorically, before answering his own question with a Bond villain-like chuckle: "Pray."

Presumably he'd also like you to download Kaspersky antivirus software.

Kaspersky's role in unraveling Stuxnet also raises the question of whether national maneuverings on the cyberfrontier create a conflict of interest for not just Kaspersky, but American firms like McAfee.

For his part, Mr. Kaspersky loudly denies any official connection to the Russian government, especially the FSB. It's not as though his company intends to find out governments are behind these viruses. "The reality is when we find the new malware in the network or somebody sends us a sample, sometimes we recognize maybe they're not criminals. Maybe they're states," he admitted. "But we detect it anyway," said, comparing Kaspersky Labs to a metal detector that pings regardless whether it's a policeman or a gangster wearing the gun.

"It's a new game and still there are no rules of this game, and what we are doing is trying to establish these rules," he said. In the meantime, he added, "I do my best to stop cyberweapons."

And while Mr. Kaspersky expects cyber-spying will always be with us, cyberweapons, he believes, have a limited future. He told us that he believes nation-states will eventually ban them in some sort of international treaty, similar to the restrictions around nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. They're just too unpredictable. He said he'd met with officials at Russia's department for cybersecurity and been told they shared his opposition.

Asked about whether any nations were more likely to develop cyberweapons than others, he merely repeated a little tidbit he'd already shared: "Russian software engineers are the best. Condoleezza Rice said that."

"I think when the Russian government comes with their message that, let's make cyberweapons forbidden, that's a good idea to follow," he added.

Duly noted.

Mr. Kaspersky not looking supervillain-like at all. (Photo: flickr.com/cebitaus)

Inspired by the behaviors of sophisticated malware such as Stuxnet, Flame, Duqu and Gauss, Russian billionaire and possible real-life Batman Eugene Kaspersky announced today that his Kaspersky Lab is developing a new operating system.

Mr. Kaspersky's announcement wasn't heavy on details about the OS, but security was obviously priority one. Acknowledging that Microsoft, Apple and the open source communities haven't been able to create truly secure controls, Mr. Kaspersky basically said the problem with the previous systems was their universality:

First: our system is highly tailored, developed for solving a specific narrow task, and not intended for playing Half-Life on, editing your vacation videos, or blathering on social media. Second: we’re working on methods of writing software which by design won’t be able to carry out any behind-the-scenes, undeclared activity. This is the important bit: the impossibility of executing third-party code, or of breaking into the system or running unauthorized applications on our OS; and this is both provable and testable.

Mr. Kaspersky linked to "Securing Critical Information Infrastructure: Trusted Computing Base" to help answer questions regarding the new OS. It's essentially a paper that dissects the way industrial cyber-attacks work and details why they work.

The study lists the following necessary elements of a "maximally secure" computer network:

• The operating system can’t be based on existing computer code; therefore, it must be written from scratch.
• To achieve a guarantee of security it must contain no mistakes or vulnerabilities whatsoever in the kernel, which controls the rest of the modules of the system. As a result, the core must be 100% verified as not permitting vulnerabilities or dual-purpose code.
• For the same reason, the kernel needs to contain a very bare minimum of code, and that means that the maximum possible quantity of code, including drivers, needs to be controlled by the core and be executed with low-level access rights.
• In such an environment there needs to be a powerful and reliable system of protection that supports different models of security.

With these features in mind, Kaspersky Lab states that its new system's central feature will be a "categorical impossibility" of running any background programs, giving engineers total control and management of the system.

Cyber-warfare being what it is today, it's safe to say the malware makers who inspired Mr. Kaspersky's Lab to develop this new system are likely already working on new exploits with it in mind.

Cover of Kaspersky Lab's report on Gauss

Kaspersky Lab recently uncovered a new and sophisticated cyberweapon they dubbed Gauss. Wired reports that intrepid researchers employed by Russian billionaire and possible Batman Eugene Kaspersky need the public's help figuring out the the malware's mysterious payload:

The warhead gets decrypted by the malware using a key composed of configuration data from the system it’s targeting. But without knowing what systems it’s targeting or the configuration on that system, the researchers have been unable to reproduce the key to crack the encryption.

In blog post published on SecureList.com, one of Kaspersky's experts also mentions another puzzle, the presence of "the uniquely named 'Palida Narrow' font" that is installed along with the malware. If you don't have the knowledge of "cryptology, numerology and mathematics" Kaspersky seeks, investigating Palida Narrow may be for you.

Kaspersky's ThreatPost addressed the intriguing presence of Palida Narrow in a blog entry published Friday. Dennis Fisher wrote that one intriguing theory about Palida Narrow is that it may be "a kind of brand to mark infected PCs for the command-and-control servers."

Kaspersky Lab has published a detailed report on Gauss that gives rates of infection--from 1660 computers infected in Lebanon to 43 compromised machines in the United States--as well as fascinating but possibly useless details like the (most likely fake) names and addresses used to register domains found embedded in the malware's code.

Call Daphne and Velma and put on your orange ascot and get out there and solve this mystery today!

Mr. Kaspersky not looking supervillain-like at all. (Photo: flickr.com/cebitaus)

Eugene Kaspersky's security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have sleuthed out a new "cyber-espionage weapon." The Russian supervillain's (or awesomely cool billionaire, depending on your point of view) labs say this weapon has nearly as cool a name as previously discovered cyber worms Flame and Duqu--"Gauss." It also has a specific and potentially telling target: Lebanese lending institutions. Bloomberg tells us more:

"Similar to Flame and Duqu, another cyber-espionage weapon, Gauss is a complex cyber-expionage toolkit, with its design emphasizing stealth and secrecy," Alexander Gostev, Kaspersky's chief security specialist, said in the statement. "However its purpose is different. Gauss targets multiple users in select countries to steal large amounts of data, with a specific focus on banking and financial information.'

Officials at one of the targeted institutions would only admit to Bloomberg that they were aware of the worm.

Kaspersky Lab's blog post about the threat gives a timeline detailing Gauss's life and the timing of its discovery, which Kaspersky writes "was made possible due to strong resemblances and correlations between Flame and Gauss."

Could it be Gauss, like Flame, was made in the USA? Maybe we'll find out if America's cyber weapons gurus are still leaking like a watering can.

Displeased. (Photo: flickr.com/cebitaus

Yesterday, we pointed out Wired's extensive profile of Eugene Kaspersky, the larger-than-life CEO of Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky Labs--a.k.a., one of the world's largest computer security firms and the folks on the front lines of the Flame and Stuxnet cyberattacks. (The firm proved they were connected.)

We found the piece's title--"Russia’s Top Cyber Sleuth Foils US Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals"--apt, as it goes into great detail about Mr. Kaspersky's company's role as "unofficial geek squad" to Russia's Federal Security Service or FSB--better known as the successor to the KGB. His background as an intelligence officer in the Soviet Army is also explored.

Well, it appears that the colorful billionaire is, shall we say, not a happy camper.

Today Mr. Kaspersky issued a lengthy response on his own blog. Unsurprisingly, he rather vehemently denies the claims that he is tied up with the Kremlin. He points out that it's normal for antivirus companies to work with the authorities on cybercrime and denies that his firm is anything other than regular old helpful experts, making a comparison to super-heroic archeologist Indiana Jones and his frequent gigs consulting with the U.S. government. (Okay, then.)

Mr. Kaspersky also complains of Wired's use of "unsourced comments." We suspect he may be referring, at least in part, to remarks like that of a “prominent member of Russia’s technology sector” who made ominous mention of "intimate involvement" with the FSB. Clearly, Mr. Kaspersky has never tried to get anyone to talk on the record about conspiracies, much less ones involving the FSB.

He also responds to a contentious quote about social networks and the government regulation thereof that also caught our eye (“It’s too much freedom there.... Freedom is good. But the bad guys—they can abuse this freedom to manipulate public opinion"):

As you all know, I’m an active blogger and engage in plenty of social media. I have an active presence on Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal. I’m an active supporter of the possibilities social networking brings to open communication and dialogue. I constantly stress that social networks can be used for positive things, and would never wish this medium to be shut down or censored.

He doesn't refute the original remark directly, though, leaving us even more curious about the original context. Was he merely throwing it out there, just-sayin' style?

He closes on a note that veers dangerously close to bombastic:

Noah Shachtman wants to believe that I’m a spy and Kremlin team member, and that I use my son as bait… I guess this could only be due to cold-war paranoia. I honestly can’t think what else it could be. The reality however is much more mundane – I’m just a man who’s “here to save the world”.

You know, modest ambitions and all.

Meanwhile, the writer of the Wired piece has issued his own lengthy response to the lengthy response. You can delve into the specifics here, but there's a hint as to the general gist:

The security mogul doesn’t mention that his firm, Kaspersky Lab, closely cooperated with WIRED’s fact-checking team on nearly every line of the profile. Moreover, the few specific points of contention Kaspersky now raises with the article are flatly contradicted by both his private and public statements.

Interestingly, this isn't the only recent dust-up between Kaspersky Labs and the press. In May, Computing News reported that CTO Nikolai Grebennikov had told them Kaspersky had been invited by Apple to consult on security holes in OS X. However, the firm quickly denied the report.

Frankly, all this Kremlinology is giving us a headache.

This new discovery is likely to fuel theories from security experts that Stuxnet was part of an American-led cyber program "that is still active in the Middle East and perhaps other parts of the world," says Reuters. Not the best way to win those hearts and minds!

Kaspersky Labs is the same firm that discovered Flame last month. CEO Eugene Kaspersky said portions of Flame's software code matched code from a 2009 version of Stuxnet. Stuxnet was discovered in 2010 after it hacked an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz, damaging centrifuges used to enrich uranium.  At a Reuters summit in London today, Mr. Kaspersky said,  "There were two different teams working in collaboration," on Stuxnet and Flame.

Authorities in Washington are busy distracting the public with investigations into the source of the leaks. But meanwhile, Israel is trying to get its name attached to the cyber attacks. This weekend, an article in Haaretz quoted anonymous Israeli agents insisting it was Mossad and not the U.S. that developed Stuxnet.

As Haaretz's Yossi Melman wrote:

"The Israeli officials actually told me a different version. They said that it was Israeli intelligence that began, a few years earlier, a cyberspace campaign to damage and slow down Iran’s nuclear intentions. And only later they managed to convince the USA to consider a joint operation — which, at the time, was unheard of. Even friendly nations are hesitant to share their technological and intelligence resources against a common enemy."

If the Mossad agents are willing to talk, we're sure John McCain would like a word.