Breaking news The Biden administration has banned the sale of Kaspersky products and services in the United States, saying the Russian biz is a national security risk.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced the crackdown today during a call with reporters, and said Uncle Sam will prohibit the sale of Kaspersky software in America from July 20 – and also prohibit the antivirus maker from distributing software updates and malware signatures to customers in the US after September 29.
“Russia has shown it has the capacity, and even more than that, the intent to exploit Russian companies like Kaspersky to collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans,” Raimondo told reporters.
In an official statement, the US government said that as a result of investigations, it found that:
Kaspersky did not respond to The Register‘s request for comment.
In one month’s time, July 20, Kaspersky cannot enter into any contracts with new US-based customers. Existing users, however, have until the start of October to find new security and antivirus software providers.
Any sellers or resellers found in violation of the ban could face fines or criminal prosecution.
This is breaking news. We’ll update here with a full story in due course.