Kaspersky has long been suspected by US officials of having ties to Russian intelligence agencies. An ongoing investigation has discovered that Russian spy services hacked political organizations including the computer networks of the Democratic National Committee and leaked damaging information. The decision comes at a time when the US government has jitters about Russian efforts to interfere with the US presidential election.

“The department wants to ensure that the company has a full opportunity to inform the Acting Secretary of any evidence, materials, or data that may be relevant,” it said in a statement. The DHS is inviting Kaspersky to submit a written response to address or mitigate its concerns. Kaspersky highlighted that more than 85% of its revenue comes from outside Russia, so it would be detrimental to its bottom line to work inappropriately with any government. The company concluded that it was “caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight” and is being “treated unfairly even though the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage or offensive cyber efforts.” The Russian company denied the allegations and said in a statement: “Kaspersky Lab doesn’t have inappropriate ties with any government, which is why no credible evidence has been presented publicly by anyone or any organization to back up the false allegations made against the company.” This means that they could theoretically provide backdoor access to sensitive information on government networks. Their products usually have access to every file on the computers they protect and regularly communicate with Kaspersky to receive updates, which is typical of antivirus software. Kaspersky Lab is one of the world’s largest and oldest antivirus software companies and claims to have 400 million users worldwide. “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 US national security.”

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