McAfee still has no proof for Shady RAT says Kaspersky

RUSSIAN SECURITY EXPERT Eugene Kaspersky continues to speak out against McAfee and its alarmist claims about the malware called Shady RAT.

Last week Kaspersky blogged his views on Shady RAT, calling it "Shoddy Rat". While McAfee warned that the RAT botnet was dangerous and scary, he said that in fact it was amateur and ancient, and rather than emerging as a threat now had actually limped along as an annoyance for a number of years.

He then called the report 'alarmist', which we can assume is one of the worst things that one security firm can call another.

Once he'd had a good look at the report, Kaspersky said, "We cannot concede that the McAfee analyst was not aware of the groundlessness of the conclusions, leading us to being able to flag the report as alarmist due to its deliberately spreading misrepresented information."

McAfee did not take this easily and hit back at its Russian rival saying that he was missing the point. "Would it be alarmist to let a bank know that someone has just walked out with a wad of cash while they weren't paying attention?" asked Phyllis Schneck, VP and CTO of McAfee's Global Public Sector division.

Since then Kaspersky, also known as the 'Virus Pope', has taken to Twitter to defend his stance and pour water on McAfee's argument, and he tweeted this morning, "Still McAfee provided no proof any party was compromised and any data was leaked in #ShadyRAT. [Calling it a persistent threat] is a misnomer that misleads the public. Need to coin an alternative."

"Meanwhile #ShadyRAT remains botnet not APT. No evidence for nation state support, advance techs & persistency."

Back to you McAfee. µ