UPDATED 22:11 EDT / JUNE 25 2017

INFRA

US tech firms allowed Russia’s government to view their source code

Some of the biggest names in U.S. tech have agreed to share their source code with Russian authorities in order to continue doing business in the country, according to a report by Reuters.

The news agency reported Friday that it has seen documents showing that Russia’s Federal Security Service and Federal Service for Technical and Export Control have examined the source code of more than 28 products from western technology firms. These include products from companies including Cisco Systems Inc., IBM Corp., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and SAP SE.

Reuters said the examinations were required by Russia so they could check for any backdoors in those products that could potentially be exploited by foreign intelligence agencies.

Of course, that’s somewhat ironic considering all of the fuss over recent claims that Russia’s intelligence services have themselves been hacking the U.S. and its politicians for years in order to try to influence its electoral process. For its part, the U.S. government advises companies not to submit to Russia’s requests, but it cannot do anything legally if they choose to do so.

That’s not to say everyone ignores the U.S. government’s advice. There are plenty of companies that do refuse, including the security firm Symantec Corp., which was reportedly concerned that Russia’s testing methods would not safeguard its intellectual property rights.

But many companies decided that the potential profits to be made from selling their products outweigh the supposed risks of letting the Russian’s sniff around their source code.

“It’s something we have a real concern about,” one former Commerce Department official with knowledge of the testing told Reuters. “You have to ask yourself what it is they are trying to do, and clearly they are trying to look for information they can use to their advantage to exploit, and that’s obviously a real problem.”

The report stressed that the U.S. companies made sure that Russian authorities weren’t allowed to copy or alter their source code in any way. Nonetheless, there are fears that the testing, which takes place in Russian laboratories, would provide the Russians with the opportunity to spot vulnerabilities in the source code that could be exploited later on.

Image: 3dman_eu/pixabay

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU