Ride the Lightning

Trump Signs Law Banning Government’s Use of Kaspersky Lab Software

December 14, 2017

On Tuesday, President Trump signed a law that bans the use of Kaspersky Lab software within the U.S. government, amid concerns it is vulnerable to Kremlin influence.

According to a story from Reuters, the ban, included as part of a broader defense policy spending bill that Trump signed, reinforces a directive issued by the Trump administration in September that civilian agencies remove Kaspersky Lab software within 90 days. The law applies to both civilian and military networks.

"The case against Kaspersky is well-documented and deeply concerning. This law is long overdue," said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who led calls in Congress to scrub the software from government computers. She added that the company's software represented a "grave risk" to U.S. national security.

Kaspersky Lab has repeatedly denied that it has ties to any government and said it would not help a government with cyber espionage. To address suspicions, the company said in October it would submit the source code of its software and future updates for inspection by independent parties. U.S. official have said that while they welcome that step, it does not suffice to allay their concerns.

Kaspersky Lab said it continued to have "serious concerns" about the law "due to its geographic-specific approach to cybersecurity." It also said that it is assessing its options and will continue to "protect its customers from cyber threats (while) collaborating globally with the IT security community to fight cybercrime."

I remain skeptical of the attacks against Kaspersky, which has, for many years, been highly regarded as one of the leading companies protecting against cyber threats, consistently on the cutting edge of discovering new threats and protecting against them. It may be that Kaspersky is simply a victim of political optics.

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