Kasperesky Lab says the anti-virus source code that one of its employees stole three years ago and distributed online cannot harm customers of the company's current products. Kasperesky Lab says the anti-virus source code that one of its employees stole three years ago and distributed online cannot harm customers of the company’s current products.Top 10 Web hacking techniques of 2010 revealedThe code was stolen by a worker who had access to 2008 code for the company’s consumer products and who tried to sell it over the Internet. He was found guilty of the theft in Russia and received a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.“Kaspersky Lab reiterates that this incident cannot harm users of its products, solutions and services in any way,” the company says in a written statement. After the thief was prosecuted in Russia, the code showed up again in November 2010 in underground online forums and afterward was posted on more public sites, the company says. The company found out about these latest illegal postings Jan. 27.After checking the code, it correlated it with the 2008 theft. “The stolen source code is related to one of the previous product lineups, and since then the company has renewed all key protection technologies,” Kaspersky’s statement reads. “The stolen code represents a very small part of the modern product source code, and is not related to protection functionality.”A spokesperson for the company declined to say what non-protection functionality the code controlled. “It also contains fragments of an obsolete version of the Kaspersky anti-virus engine, which has been radically redesigned and updated since the source code was stolen,” the statement says.The company says all its code is copyrighted and protected by trade-secret laws, so posting, downloading and using the code without authorization is illegal. “Kaspersky Lab will take all appropriate legal measures against those who violate these intellectual property laws by possessing or seeking to possess, or sharing the illegally disclosed source code,” the company says.The company says it continues to work with law enforcement authorities on the theft.Read more about wide area network in Network World’s Wide Area Network section. Related content news Okta launches Cybersecurity Workforce Development Initiative New philanthropic and educational grants aim to advance inclusive pathways into cybersecurity and technology careers. By Michael Hill Oct 04, 2023 3 mins IT Skills Careers Security news New critical AI vulnerabilities in TorchServe put thousands of AI models at risk The vulnerabilities can completely compromise the AI infrastructure of the world’s biggest businesses, Oligo Security said. By Shweta Sharma Oct 04, 2023 4 mins Vulnerabilities news ChatGPT “not a reliable” tool for detecting vulnerabilities in developed code NCC Group report claims machine learning models show strong promise in detecting novel zero-day attacks. By Michael Hill Oct 04, 2023 3 mins DevSecOps Generative AI Vulnerabilities news Google Chrome zero-day jumps onto CISA's known vulnerability list A serious security flaw in Google Chrome, which was discovered under active exploitation in the wild, is a new addition to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency’s Known Exploited vulnerabilities catalog. By Jon Gold Oct 03, 2023 3 mins Zero-day vulnerability Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe