This week, the Department of Homeland Security banned Kaspersky software from being used in the government sector. They cite the company’s potential ties to the Russian government. It comes on the heels of another decision made months earlier. General Services Administration, which regulates US spending on IT, removed the company from a list of approved sellers.
The new ban takes things a step further. It gives all agencies 90 days to remove all Kaspersky products out of their networks. “The risk that the Russian government, whether acting on its own or in collaboration with Kaspersky, could capitalize on access provided by Kaspersky products to compromise federal information and information systems directly implicates US national security,” reads a statement from the DHS.
The history about the mistrust in Kaspersky software
The company was thrown into the spotlight after news of the Russians hacking the 2016 US presidential election. Kaspersky’s ties to Russian intelligence have come under new scrutiny. The founder is Eugene Kaspersky. What adds more suspicion is that Eugene Kaspersky has a military background. Furthermore, he closely associates with many high ranking officials in the Kremlin.
Kaspersky—and Eugene himself—have repeatedly denied any accusations of collusion with the Russian government. They have one main defence. It is that there is a lack of solid proof connecting the company to any type of collusion. At one point they even outsourced their software. This was to clear any doubts on the existence of a backdoor. But the security community has remained wary. They note that Kaspersky’s antivirus, like many similar products, does have the ability to upload specific files from its users’ machines back to Kaspersky’s servers.
That suspicion has impacted Kaspersky’s consumer business as well as its government sales. Earlier this week, retail giant Best Buy abruptly pulled the company’s products from its shelves, too.
