Russian IT security solutions developer Kaspersky Lab plans to open a new US office in the Washington D.C. area to sell its products to the US government, Reuters reported earlier this month.
One of the world’s biggest buyers of security software, the US government traditionally avoids purchasing Russian IT products out of fear that they might have backdoors for Russian secret services. This is why Kaspersky Lab has decided to build the products aimed at the US within the US.
“American companies are 100 percent trusted, so we have to prove we are 200 percent trusted,” Eugene Kaspersky, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit. “We have to be more American than the Americans.”
The team in the Washington office, which will consist of US citizens, will work on developing an operating system for computers that control industrial facilities such as electric generators, water treatment systems, and factories.
Kaspersky Lab is actively working on its expansion beyond the Russian borders. Earlier this month, the company signed an agreement with Qualcomm to pre-install its Mobile Security and Tablet Security solutions onto Android-equipped devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Among its other international partners are Microsoft, Cisco, Lenovo, Facebook, and many others.
Last year the company had announced plans to go public. However, in February 2013 Eugene Kaspersky said that the IPO ambitions had been abandoned, while the new plan was to buy back the 20% stake Kaspersky Lab had sold to a private equity investor in 2012.
