Parallels Desktop now a security risk? (according to CleanMyMac)

[Nicole1980]

I’d hardly put much trust in CleanMyMac to be brutally honest… It’s not got, shall we say, a stellar reputation…

GET RID of 'Clean My Mac'. They spam the internet with their ads because that's exactly what the program is: spam

 

[skippingrock]

I saw this article on ZDnet……… It sheds a bit of light on this.

How Russia's invasion of Ukraine threatens the IT industry

What the conflict in Eastern Europe will mean for relationships with software companies, developers, and outsourced tech talent connected with Russia.

www.zdnet.com

 

[Tagbert]

Personally I thought that Parallels was Russia-based.

Parallels was founded in Virginia in the US. They soon moved to the Seattle area. They were purchased in 2018 by Corel, a Canadian company.

It is possible that they have or had development teams in Ukraine, Belarus, and/or Russia. That doesn’t mean that the company or its product are controlled by Russia. The company I work for has development teams in dozens of countries. I worked with a team in Belarus for a couple of years. A couple of years ago, we cut back on contractors and their contract was ended. If they had had ill intent there was little that they could do, they only had access to the source for the services that they were working on and they were not the only team working on it. At worst, they could leak some source code or short term business plans but that’s about it and not worth much.

This seems like someone at Macpaw had a bug up their butt about Parallels.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Parallels was founded in Virginia in the US. They soon moved to the Seattle area. They were purchased in 2018 by Corel, a Canadian company.

It is possible that they have or had development teams in Ukraine, Beluruss, and/or Russia. That doesn’t mean that the company or its product are controlled by Russia. The company I work for has development teams in dozens of countries. I worked with a team in Beluruss for a couple of years. A couple of years ago, we cut back on contractors and their contract was ended. If they had had ill intent there was little that they could do, they only had access to the source for the services that they were working on and they were not the only team working on it. At worst, they could leak some source code or short term business plans but that’s about it and not worth much.

This seems like someone at Macpaw had a bug up their butt about Parallels.

Well, that puts my lack of knowing on the line.

I think my ideas about Parallels based over seas in Russia let's say - is because I've always thought of Parallels as a shady company with a shady program. Not to say that Russia is to blame for everything - or any East European country.

Other than that I can't defend my lack of knowledge any better than that.

Thank you for commenting.

 

[KaliYoni]

Another incident that shows using (apparent) country of origin as a basis for avoiding software is difficult to do effectively:

EXCLUSIVE Russian software disguised as American finds its way into U.S. Army, CDC apps

Thousands of smartphone applications in Apple and Google's online stores contain computer code developed by a technology company, Pushwoosh, that presents itself as based in the United States, but is actually Russian, Reuters has found.

www.reuters.com

 

[johannnn]

Another incident that shows using (apparent) country of origin as a basis for avoiding software is difficult to do effectively:

I would say it's still extremely effective. The opposite happens once and it becomes so big its being featured on Reuters.