Elections Quebec will stop using controversial Russian security software following our Investigation Bureau pointed out to it yesterday “a considerable risk of computer attack” raised by Germany.
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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 might be spied on by the Kremlin during a cyber operation, or else 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.
Americans Hacked
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 following, 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.
Nine public contracts
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.
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’s services.
Despite our requests, it was not possible yesterday to find out whether the other organizations were still using the Russian computer giant.
She denies
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 Bureau of Investigation 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
◆ Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, a computer security company, in 1997.
◆ He was educated in a KGB school, the secret service 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.
