Just days after company founder Eugene Kaspersky announced his readiness to have Kaspersky Lab’s source code examined by the US administration, suspicions about his ties to the Kremlin have been fuelled again by Bloomberg.
The agency claims to have obtained internal company emails showing that “Kaspersky Lab has maintained a much closer working relationship with the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence agency, than it has publicly admitted.”
Kaspersky Lab has “developed security technology at the [FSB]’s behest and worked on joint projects the CEO knew would be embarrassing if made public,” Bloomberg Businessweek wrote yesterday.
Answering these assertions, the cyber security company stated that it “does not have any unethical ties or affiliations with any government, including Russia” while “providing appropriate products and services to governments around the world to protect those organizations from cyberthreats.”
“When statements are taken out of context, anything can be manipulated to serve an agenda,” the company added, quoted by Bloomberg.
Almost simultaneously, the media reported that Kaspersky Lab had been removed from two lists of approved vendors of technology services and digital photographic equipment used by the US administration.
“The delisting represents the most concrete action taken against Kaspersky following months of mounting suspicion among intelligence officials and lawmakers that the company may be too closely connected to hostile Russian intelligence agencies accused of cyber attacks on the United States,” Reuters noted.
