FBI wants private firms and government organizations to stop using Kaspersky
The FBI’s intention is to have U.S. firms remove Kaspersky
out of their PC’s as early as possible or avoid from utilizing them in new
Machines or other efforts, the new and former officials say.
The FBI’s counterintelligence division has continued
providing directions since the start of the year on a priority basis,
prioritizing businesses in the electricity sector and those that use industrial
control (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.
In light of continuous cyber attacks upon the electric grid
in Ukraine, the FBI has directed on this sector due to the significant
infrastructure class assigned to it by the Department of Homeland Security.
Furthermore, the FBI has advised large U.S. tech companies
that have running partnerships or business agreements with Kaspersky on
products from routers to virtual machines that meet a wide range of American
companies and civilians.
In the instructions, FBI executives give businesses a
high-level summary of the threat evaluation, including what the U.S.
intelligence community says are the Kaspersky’s broad and active links with
Russian intelligence. FBI executives point to various specific allegations of
wrongdoing by Kaspersky, such as a well-known example of supposedly faking
malware.
In a report to News, a Kaspersky spokesperson criticized
those selective prosecutions on “disappointed, former company employees, whose
allegations are meritless” while FBI officials say, in private and away from
public inspection, they know the event took place and was approved by the
company’s leadership.
The FBI’s instructions have seen mixed results. Companies
that employ ISC and SCADA systems have been nearly cooperative, one
administration official told News, due in substantial part to what’s called as
a great sense of urgency that dominates most other industries. Several of these
organizations have quietly shifted ahead on the FBI’s sanctions against
Kaspersky by, for example, signing deals with Kaspersky contenders.
