U.S. Government imposes ban on Kaspersky

For several months now, Kaspersky has been under severe suspicion for cyber espionage, linking it with the Russian Government. A couple of months back, the General Services Administration of the U.S. had restricted and removed Kaspersky Lab from the list of approved vendors. Now, the Government has taken further steps to ban the Russian security software provider altogether.

According to a statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security to the Washington Post, "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."

According to the U.S. officials, half a dozen federal agencies run Kaspersky on their networks and devices. Although there may be other networks, an agency’s chief information security officer may not be completely aware of information being used, the officials claimed.

However, on the other hand, Kaspersky completely denies having any ties and links with the Russian Government. The company has denied the accusations stating that it doesn't have any inappropriate ties with any government while there’s no credible evidence to back up the false allegations.

Concerns and controversies of Kaspersky had been brewing for a while now. Not to forget, very recently even retailer Best Buy took off Kaspersky products off its shelves. It looks like the U.S. Government is sending out a strong message, although true facts about Kaspersky remain unclear.