Russian tech billionaire Kaspersky caught in cyber Cold War crossfire

Eugene Kaspersky, the Russian founder of the global software security firm, insists he is non-partisan in a new Cold War that increasingly utilises cyberwarfare to interfere with national politics.

In an interview with bne IntelliNews, Kaspersky says allegations that Russia was behind a recent attempt to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s bid for the US presidency was “a political blame game”. Donald Trump, her main rival, urged Russia to hack into and release Clinton’s personal emails while the FBI said there was a “weight of opinion” pointing to Moscow as the original source of the attack on the US Democratic party’s computers.

“There were some Russian-speaking ‘fingerprints’ and components so they could be Russians, but they could be international or mercenaries,” ventures Kaspersky, aged 50, speaking with bne IntelliNews in Dublin, a new focus of his company’s expansion. “Who knows? I really sense this is a really politically-motivated blame game.”