Inside the fight for the soul of Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab is under fire in the US over concerns that it could provide its clients’ private — and at times secret — information to the Russian government. A new investigation by Meduza, an independent-minded Russian news site, published today in English by BuzzFeed News, goes inside the battle for control of the company — a battle which Meduza’s sources say was won by the side allied with Russian security services.

“The decline in fortunes of Kaspersky Lab was the result of an internal struggle for control that pitted allies of the Russian secret service against ‘tech-savvy’ staff and Western investors. The managers within Kaspersky Lab, like Chekunov, with ties to Russia’s security agencies won that battle. But in so doing, they threaten to destroy everything the company has built outside Russia,” writes Meduza reporter Ilya Zhegulev.

Eugene Kaspersky declined to comment personally on Meduza’s questions, but a spokesperson for Kaspersky Lab said: “We don’t have any illegal or unethical ties with security services anywhere in the world.” The company said much the same in a court document filed in a suit against the US government last week, claiming that the US’s allegation had substantially harmed its reputation and caused its business in the US to decline by half compared with the same time last year.