5 US officials revealed that the Biden administration might be planning to ban US citizens and private companies from using Kaspersky Lab’s products.
Government officials and the US’s military network are already banned from using their products over national security concerns.
No decision has been made yet but the ban might be implemented this month.
Biden is taking a major step that might forever change the relationship between the US and Russia.
On April 9, 5 US officials confirmed that the government is planning to ban US private companies and people in the US from using products (especially the antivirus) developed by Kaspersky Lab (a popular Russian cybersecurity firm) over national security concerns.
Although they did not reveal any date for the execution of the ban, it will probably happen sometime this month. A lot of details are still being finalized.
The US government has always had their doubts about Kaspersky Lab. They feel that at any given moment, Russia could force the company to divulge critical information about its US user base and the company will have no choice but to oblige. Although Kaspersky has always denied these accusations, it hasn’t been able to convince the US government.
For the same reason, government officials and the US military network are banned from using any product developed by Kaspersky Lab. However, banning private companies and individuals from using their products is certainly an unusual move.
Why Is the Biden Administration Banning Kaspersky Products?
The biggest reason behind this impending ban is security concerns. The government is trying to protect critical US infrastructure and the confidential data of US citizens from falling into the wrong hands.
Recently, we have also seen US regulators planning to ban TikTok if the company didn’t cut ties with its parent company ByteDance (which is based in China).
Both US-China and US-Russia relationships are severely strained at the moment. There have been quite a few instances where certain hacking attempts in the US were found to be backed by either China or Russia.
For example, just last week the US government was impacted in an attack aimed at Microsoft. The attacker was identified as Midnight Blizzard, a Russia-backed hacking group.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) already released an emergency directive this week to the federal agencies related to the attack.
In March of 2024, US authorities warned state governors that China-backed hackers could be attacking their state’s water systems.
The US government had also ordered an investigation into Chinese smart cars, as it suspects they can be used to steal user information.
The US isn’t the only victim. The French government was also attacked by Anonymous Sudan, a Russia-backed hacker, that exposed the data of around 43 million users.
Considering all the recent events, US officials don’t want to take any risk by allowing Russian companies to freely access the data of US companies and citizens.
What Happens Now?
Kaspersky has one shot to turn the events in its favor. The US laws will allow the company to appeal against the “initial determination” of the regulators or it can strike a negotiation deal with the government, address their security concerns, and fix the problem. But all of this needs to be done before the final ruling is announced.
Such a change can be disruptive for businesses, especially the ones running on limited funding and with no dedicated technical team.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department also has to figure out how the ban will be implemented, how practical it will be, and if forcing every single business to give up Kaspersky is logical.
For example, it makes no sense for a small business located somewhere in a small US town to stop using Kaspersky, especially if their business data does not threaten national security in any way.
We don’t know how many users Kaspersky has from the US but globally, it supports 400 million people and 240,000 companies. Considering these numbers, it’s safe to assume that a lot of people in the US are using Kaspersky’s services, which makes this matter all the more delicate.
Neither Kaspersky nor the representatives of the Commerce Department have responded to any requests for a comment.
However, a Commerce official made a statement saying that they will do whatever it takes to address and mitigate national security concerns.
If that involves saying: X, Y, Z critical infrastructure operators in high-risk sectors, you can’t use this software and that software provider can’t transact with you, then we’ll do that.A Commerce official
There’s indeed a lot of dilemma, but what’s certain is that some US officials believe that the risk Kaspersky poses is a much bigger concern than the inconvenience US people will have in switching to a different provider.
