Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo: “We’re not afraid of the consequences” of a U.S. ban on cybercrime from Kaspersky
Kaspersky boasts one of the world’s most popular consumer antivirus products and a research unit widely respected for routinely exposing elite hacking groups.
“When you think about national security, you may think about guns and tanks and missiles,” Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters during a briefing Thursday. “But the truth is, increasingly, it’s about technology, and it’s about dual-use technology, and it’s about data.”
Raimondo stated that Commerce and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice will work together to ensure a smooth transition, including through a website explaining the ban. “We certainly don’t want to disrupt the business or families of any Americans.”
DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will contact critical infrastructure organizations that use Kaspersky to brief them on the alleged national security risks and “help them identify alternatives,” the Commerce Department official said.
“We look forward to what the future holds, and will continue to defend ourselves against actions that seek to unfairly harm our reputation and commercial interests,” it said.
The company says it cannot deliberately obtain sensitive data on Americans and that its operations and employees in Russia can only access aggregate or statistical data not attributable to a specific person. It says that the main impact of the U.S’s decision is to benefit cybercrime, while also diminishing the freedom of consumers and organizations to choose cyber protection they want.
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 conducts much of its business in Russia and, as a Russian citizen who lives in that country, Eugene Kaspersky himself is subject to Russian law, the Commerce Department said in a decision dated June 14 that was posted on the Federal Register.
Kaspersky said the government had based its decision on the “geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns” rather than independently verifying if there was a risk.