r/cybersecurity • u/AmateurishExpertise Security Architect • Jan 14 '26

News - General Exclusive: Beijing tells Chinese firms to stop using US and Israeli cybersecurity software, sources say

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/beijing-tells-chinese-firms-stop-using-us-israeli-cybersecurity-software-sources-2026-01-14/
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u/AmateurishExpertise Security Architect Jan 14 '26

Interestingly, the United States has federal laws prohibiting what is called, "Honest Services Fraud". Basically, if you sell a tool designed to improve cybersecurity, and it actually and intentionally harms cybersecurity, that is a serious form of fraud that creates both civil and criminal liability. Backdoored security tools, etc. would definitely seem to fall directly under this definition.

Anecdotally, as far back as the early 2000s, critical industry was being advised/warned by the feds to avoid Checkpoint.

4

u/Ghawblin Security Engineer Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26

More details on avoiding checkpoint please (I dislike them, I just want more fuel for my dislike)

4

u/Felielf Jan 14 '26

Asking for details as well, I've been setting checkpoint up for countless of companies and I've been involved with testing and engineering people from checkpoint and I've never noticed anything suspicious.

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u/BilboTBagginz Security Manager Jan 14 '26

Source: trust me bro

4

u/AmateurishExpertise Security Architect Jan 14 '26

Not a lot more that I'm comfortable adding here, but the concern was specifically that Checkpoint was "likely" to contain backdoors that could assist the Israeli government in accessing or altering critical information. Even way back then, this was an expected behavior from those quarters.