The US administration places Russian antivirus Kaspersky on the list of sensitive software

The FCC, the American commission in charge of communications technologies, this week added the Russian company Kaspersky to its list of companies presenting a threat to national security.

This is a first for a Russian company, but it may just be the start. We learn from The Verge that the Moscow-based antivirus solution provider Kaspersky has been added by the FCC to the list of companies that may pose a threat to American security. This measure had in the past been adopted for several Chinese brands, including Huawei and ZTE.

Kaspersky on the same list of entities than Huawei

The FCC list includes companies posing a “ unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States “, we read. It is actually intended primarily for US companies, which are not allowed to use federal subsidies to purchase products or services from companies on this list.

However, this measure can go quite far. In the case of Huawei, many American firms had been prohibited from providing their services or selling their technologies to the Chinese giant, due to its appearance in theEntity List US authorities. A situation that had had serious repercussions for Huawei, notably preventing it from using Google services on its smartphones and tablets.

A political affair for Kaspersky

In a statement shared on its official website, Kaspersky commented on this FCC decision by denouncing an action “ based on political terrain “, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The firm nevertheless says to itself “ willing to cooperate with U.S. government agencies to address the concerns of the FCC and any other regulatory agency “.

That being so, and as recalled The Verge, suspicion of Kaspersky is old. The company is notably accused of maintaining close relations with the Kremlin. In 2017, the Russian secret services, for example, used the firm’s antivirus software to steal classified documents from the NSA (National Security Agency). If this affair had been formally denied by Kaspersky at the time, the group’s software solutions had nevertheless been threatened with exclusion from American federal agencies by a bill signed in 2018 by President Trump.

Source: The Verge