Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky denies it is a security threat after the US Commerce Department banned the use of its software in the United States.
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The Moscow-based company - whose CEO Eugene Kaspersky is Russian - said the Commerce Department's decision would not affect its ability to sell and promote its cybersecurity products and training in the US.
Kaspersky said the government had based its decision on the "geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns" rather than independently verifying if there was a risk.
The government said Kaspersky's Russian connections meant the company posed an "undue or unacceptable risk to US national security or the safety and security".
The company conducts much of its business in Russia and, as a Russian citizen who lives in that country, Eugene Kaspersky himself was subject to Russian law, the Commerce Department said in a decision dated June 14 that was posted on the Federal Register.
The department said it had 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 could be exploited to identify sensitive US citizens' data and make it available to Russian government actors, the department said.
Kaspersky boasts one of the world's most popular consumer antivirus products and a research unit widely respected for routinely exposing elite hacking groups.
Russia said the US ban was a typical move by Washington to stifle foreign competition with American products.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kaspersky was a "very competitive" company on international markets and that Washington's decision to restrict its sales was a "favourite technique of unfair competition from the United States".
In 2019, the Associated Press found that an undercover operative had targeted several cybersecurity experts in an apparent effort to gather intelligence about critics of Kaspersky.
The company said it could not deliberately obtain sensitive data on Americans and its operations and employees in Russia could only access aggregate or statistical data not attributable to a specific person.
It said the main impact of the US government's decision would be to benefit cybercrime, while also diminishing the freedom of consumers and organisations to choose the cyber protection they want.
AP and Reuters
Australian Associated Press
