a French company purchased code from a Kremlin-connected firm and

-inside FBI's background check center

12-26-17   In a secret deal, a French company purchased code from a Kremlin-connected firm, incorporated it into its own software, and hid its existence from the FBI, according to documents and two whistleblowers. The allegations raise concerns that Russian hackers could compromise law enforcement computer systems....

BuzzFeed News reviewed an unsigned copy of the licensing agreement between the French and Russian companies, which both men said they had obtained while working for Morpho; it is dated July 2, 2008 — a year before the company beat out some of the world’s largest biometric firms, including an American competitor, to secure the FBI business. It grants Sagem Sécurité the right to incorporate the Papillon code into the French company’s software and to sell the finished product as its own technology. It also stipulates that Papillon would provide updates and improvements during the five-year period that ended on the last day of 2013. In return, Sagem Sécurité agreed to pay an initial fee of roughly 3.8 million euros — equivalent to almost $6 million at the time — plus annual fees.

The contract, which is also referenced in court documents, says that to Papillon’s knowledge its software does not contain any “undisclosed ‘back door,’ ‘time bomb,’ ‘drop dead,’ or other software routine designed to disable the software automatically with the passage of time or under the positive control of any person” or any “virus, ‘Trojan horse,’ ‘worm,’ or other software routines or hardware components designed to permit unauthorized access, to disable, erase, or otherwise harm the software, hardware, or data.”

The contract reviewed by BuzzFeed News also contains a section titled “Publicity” that says, “The parties agree to keep strictly confidential and not to disclose by any means to any third party the existence and the contents of this Agreement....

In promotional material and on its website, Papillon boasts of its work with Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, which oversees police and immigration agencies, among others, and is run by a longtime police official who was appointed to the post in 2012 by President Vladimir Putin....“Papillon is not an independent company,” said Hala, one of the whistleblowers.  “Papillon was an emanation of the Internal Affairs Ministry, so Papillon was always under the control of the ministry.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/fbi-software-contains-russian-made-code-that-could-open-a?utm_term=.ukPwpwV3MM#.kp6gzgbRrr