Overnight the Biden Administration announced it would ban the sale of the Kaspersky anti-virus software in the United States, citing the Russia-based Kaspersky Lab’s customers, which include vital infrastructure providers and both state and local governments.
Kaspersky has previously asserted that it has no ties with the Russian Government as a privately managed company, but a Reuters source said the software’s access to critical computer systems represented too great a threat, with potential for both stealing sensitive information or interfering with operations via malware or other means.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Reuters that the company was found to pose a significant threat.
Demonstrated capacity and intent
"Russia has shown it has the capacity and ... the intent to exploit Russian companies like Kaspersky to collect and weaponise the personal information of Americans and that is why we are compelled to take the action that we are taking today," Raimondo told Reuters reporters.
In its official statement, the US Government said its investigation had found “the company’s continued operations in the United States presented a national security risk — due to the Russian Government’s offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations — that could not be addressed through mitigation measures short of a total prohibition.”
Three organisations under the Kaspersky umbrella will now be added to the Entity List, which bars US organisations from trading with them in certain capacities.
AO Kaspersky Lab, OOO Kaspersky Group (Russia), and Kaspersky Labs Limited (United Kingdom) will be banned due to "cooperation with Russian military and intelligence authorities in support of the Russian Government’s cyber intelligence objectives."
"We would never give an adversarial nation the keys to our networks or devices, so it's crazy to think that we would continue to allow Russian software with the deepest possible device access to be sold to Americans," said Democratic Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Russia has a long history of engaging in cyberwarfare, beginning as early as 2007 with at least 10 major confirmed attacks since, including disinformation and propaganda campaigns, election interference, data breaches, malware deployment, network infiltration and sabotage and supply chain attacks.