Tales from Lab'a

This summer our company is 20 years old. At first we wanted to write a self-congratulatory text in the style “And Tamerlane was the last to go. And he lifted heavy stones. And he spoke with them, remembering their names, ”but then they decided that they were still very young for memoirs. And instead we just want to tell a few tales. And not necessarily directly related to cybersecurity, in short, everything that somehow gets out of the routine.

Reduction issues

The direct ancestor of our main defensive solution for home users is the AVP program, which Evgeny Valentinovich did long before the creation of the company. The program has not been released for a long time, but we are still periodically asked why the Antivirus Toolkit Pro has been reduced as AVP, and not ATP (as it would be logical).
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The answer is simple - it happened. In late 1993, the Virus Test Center at the University of Hamburg requested a program for testing. Evgeny Valentinovich archived the next build, naming the file AVP.zip, sent and completely forgot about it. And soon it turned out that the antivirus showed the best result out of all 32 tested products. And he participated in the test under the name of the archive. I had to comply - it would be foolish enough to call it ATP and tell everyone that this is the same antivirus that won in research as AVP.

Dancing with pigs

Until now, one of the first associations with our defensive products is the squeal of a pig, which Kaspersky Anti-Virus notified about the threat found. The Internet was slow at that time, so leaving the computer on all night was perfectly fine. And here you lie on the clock 4.00 nights, and then from the columns screeching. And in the afternoon, a sudden "ui-and-and-and-and" could well make you stutter. Immediately after the release, we began to receive angry letters demanding to remove the screeching. And we removed it. By the way, in the 8th version of the product it was turned off by default, and from the 13th version it was removed altogether.

Of course, soon other angry letters began to arrive with demands to return the screech, for clarity of work and demonstration of efficiency. Of course, we did not return it in the form of default settings, but if you wish, you can restore it yourself by using this instruction.

1. Disable antivirus self-defense (main window -> Settings -> Advanced -> Self-defense -> Uncheck “Enable Self-Defense” - ›click OK).
2. Go to the folder C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Kaspersky Lab \ Product name (for example, Kaspersky Internet Security) \ skin \ resources \ neutral \ sounds.
3. Rename the file infected.wav stored in this folder to something else.
4. Download the file infected.wav and copy it to the same folder.
5. Be sure to turn Self-Defense back on!
6. You can download the test file from our support.kaspersky.com/viruses/general/459 page to check the sound.
7. ????
8. Profit!

Engine Oil for Pope

In 2016, Yevgeny Valentinovich met with the Pope. For a number of reasons, he decided to bring such a useful item as an adding machine as a gift to the pontiff. Several models were considered. One of them was brought to the office on the eve of the trip, and suddenly it turned out that no one had worked on this computer for at least half a century. What to do? Tehsapport does not support this. They remembered that in the administrative management there is engine oil for the doors.

And at some point we find that we are in an innovative IT company, but now we have to come to the people and tell them that we need some engine oil to lubricate the calculator for the Pope. And the worst thing is that all this is not the delirium of a madman, but pure truth.

Business executives, we must pay tribute to them, were not surprised. Well, oil. Well for dad. No problem. And the adding machine then gave another. Even more ancient and not working at all.

Industrial alcohol security

For the past few years, we have been seriously engaged in industrial cybersecurity. In order to visually demonstrate the vulnerability of industrial controllers, we assemble stands - models of hypothetical technological processes, built on the most current industrial equipment. Usually we take them to thematic conferences and exhibitions. In fact, we tried several options. And you know which of them was the most obvious?

Alcobot. A kind of improvisation on the industrial robot bartender. Anyone can find a vulnerability in the logic of his technological process, take advantage of it and mix himself a unique cocktail. Perhaps even usable. I must say that Alcobot very intelligibly (literally without spilling a single drop) conveys information about the need for industrial cyber defense.

Error address

Our central office is located at the address: Leningradskoye Shosse, 39. And our colleagues and, by the way, are almost the same age as Mail.ru - at the address: Leningradsky Avenue, 39. Therefore, we are used to the fact that everyone is constantly confused. Then the journalists will not come to the press event, they will send the correspondence.

Several years ago, a mysterious man came to our office and began trying to break through inside, claiming that he had a business meeting at Mail.ru. We explained to him for a long time that he had the wrong address, but he did not believe. Already out of the office, he disapprovingly and not quite censoredly declared that he was being powdered by his brain. To which he was again assured that no Mail.ru is here and never was.

"Yes?! What is this ?! ”- The man angrily pointed his finger at the sports grounds of the Dynamo water stadium (our neighbors). And there at that moment passed some kind of corporate event, and, unfortunately, Mail.ru. And all the sites were tightened banners, where the name was written in large letters. And the man is gone. So, probably, he still thinks that his damned mailboxes are cheating.

And if you expected to see in this post something more traditional, like our timeline with milestones, then you would rather come here .