Cyber security company Kaspersky denied on Friday that it posed a security threat after the US Commerce Department banned the use of its software in the United States.
The Moscow-based company, with CEO Eugene Kaspersky, a Russian citizen, said in a statement that the Commerce Department’s decision will not prevent it from selling or advertising its products, as well as conducting training in the field. of cybersecurity in the US.
The company said Washington had based the decision on “the geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns” rather than independently verifying whether it faced any risks.
The US government says Kaspersky’s Russian ties mean it poses a “significant and unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States”.
The company conducts most of its business in Russia, and as a Russian citizen living there, Eugene Kaspersky is subject to Russian laws, the US Commerce Department said in a June 14 ruling.
US officials said they had considered the company’s objection to the initial findings of the investigation into whether its products or services posed a threat and concluded that the decision to halt the program was based on the facts.
In addition to forcing the company to comply with Russian laws and rulings, its software could be used to find sensitive data of US citizens and make it available to Russian government actors, US officials said. .
“The risks to US national security that led to the final decision to ban the company stem not from whether Kaspersky’s products are effective at identifying viruses, but whether they can be used strategically to harm the United States United”, the statement says.
The company “Kaspersky” boasts one of the internationally recognized antivirus products, as well as a unit of widely respected cyber experts who constantly expose well-known hacker groups.
In 2019, the Associated Press news agency revealed that an undercover operative had targeted several cybersecurity experts in an alleged effort to gather information about Mr. Kaspersky’s critics.
The company says it cannot knowingly provide sensitive data to Americans and that its operations and employees in Russia can only access general or statistical data that is not attributable to a specific person.
The company said that this decision by the US government would benefit cybercrime, as well as reduce the freedom of consumers and organizations to choose the cyber protection they want.
“We look to the future and will continue to defend ourselves against actions aimed at unfairly damaging our reputation and commercial interests,” the Russian company said in a statement./VOA
