Kaspersky withdraws from USA after ban
The Russian antivirus specialist Kaspersky Labs has taken drastic action shortly after the ban on the sale of its products in the USA: the US branch of Kaspersky is being closed and all employees have to leave. Kaspersky Lab
US government issued ban in June
Kaspersky has now confirmed that it is completely withdrawing from the US after the blog Zetter Zeroday first reported on it. Kaspersky had been offering its world-famous security solutions in the USA since 2005 and had partly developed them there. However, from July 20, 2024, a sales ban imposed by the US Department of Commerce will come into effect.
As Kaspersky Labs has since announced, it will begin winding down its business activities in the USA from July 20, 2024. This will also mean the jobs of the employees working there will be eliminated, although Kaspersky says it has fewer than 50 employees in the United States. The company is also paying its employees in the USA a severance payment of an unknown amount.
In June, the US Department of Commerce imposed a ban on Kaspersky Labs’ distribution of software in the US after discovering various reasons for this during an “extremely thorough investigation”. The agency has not yet provided any precise details about what was discovered during the investigation. However, it stressed that there were indications that the software could be used to spy on US customers or sabotage their computers.
US government fears Russian espionage
The American Department of Homeland Security had already imposed a ban on the use of Kaspersky products by US authorities in 2017. Kaspersky still claims that its security software has never been misused by Russian authorities and that it does not cooperate with any government in the world. However, there was a case in 2017 in which code from an NSA employee’s computer was identified as malware and transferred to Kaspersky. The code was handled as is generally the case with newly discovered malware. When samples are discovered by Kaspersky Antivirus, they are automatically transferred to the company for further analysis.
However, the code from the NSA employee’s computer had been freshly developed to be used for the secret service’s espionage activities. As soon as the company became aware of this, the code was immediately deleted on the instructions of company founder Eugene Kaspersky, Kaspersky said. The complete sales ban is now due to the fact that the investigation found that Kaspersky products are still being used by supply-relevant companies and certain important infrastructure.
Because Kaspersky Labs essentially loses access to the US market with the ban, the company is no longer able to operate there, which is why the US branch is now being closed, it said. As a result of the ban, Kaspersky Labs also ended up on the Department of Commerce’s embargo list. American companies are therefore no longer allowed to have any further business relationships with the Russian software provider. In addition, Kaspersky is no longer allowed to provide updates for its antivirus and security solutions to US customers.
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