WASHINGTON DC – Homeland Security is banning Russia-based Kaspersky Lab from doing business with the U.S. government.
In a statement on Wednesday, DHS Acting Secretary Elaine Duke directed all Executive Branch agencies and departments to identify over the next 30 days any Kaspersky products being used, make a plan in the next 60 days to eliminate their use and begin that discontinuation within 90 days.
“The Department is concerned about the ties between certain Kaspersky officials and Russian intelligence and other government agencies, and requirements under Russian law that allow Russian intelligence agencies to request or compel assistance from Kaspersky and to intercept communications transiting Russian networks,” DHS said in its directive.
“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 U.S. national security.”
At the end of its full statement on the issue, available here, DHS states that it will allow Kaspersky and “any other entity that claims its commercial interests will be directly impacted” to submit a written argument along with any evidence or data that could offset the U.S. government’s concerns.
Kaspersky fired back at the decision with its own statement, said it does not have any inappropriate ties with any government. However, Kaspersky founder Eugene Kaspersky is a former agent for the Russian Federal Security Service (in the west called FSB). Formerly called the Federal Counterintelligence Service, it is a Russian internal security and counterintelligence service created in 1994 as one of the successor agencies of the Soviet-era KGB. Russian President Vladimir Putin is the former Director of the FSB.
