Washington, DC – The Commerce Department has banned Kaspersky from selling its software in the United States. The Commerce Department said in a decision posted today on the Federal Register.
The Commerce Department says that Kaspersky is made up a of a myriad of subsidiary and wholly owned enterprises, but is 100 Percent Controlled from Moscow. Kaspersky
development comes out of Russia as well and thereby posing Cybersecurity Risks to the United States.
According the Federal Register, “Kaspersky Lab, Inc. is owned by Kaspersky Labs Limited, a United Kingdom corporation, which in turn is headquartered in Moscow. In addition, Kaspersky Lab Switzerland GmbH, a subsidiary of Kaspersky Labs Limited, sells product licenses to U.S. end users via the Kaspersky website. And finally, threat related data received from users of Kaspersky products in North America is processed and stored on Swiss servers.”
The department said it considered Kaspersky’s objections to the initial findings of its investigation into whether its products or services posed a threat and found that the decision to ban its software was “well supported.”
Aside from the company’s obligation to abide by Russian laws and decisions, its software can be exploited to identify sensitive U.S. citizens’ data and make it available to Russian government actors, the department said.
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