On Thursday, June 20, the administration of US President Joe Biden announced its intention to ban the sale of Kaspersky antivirus due to ties with Russia and potential security risks. This was reported by Reuters.
"Russia has shown it has the capacity and ... the intent to exploit Russian companies like Kaspersky to collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans and that is why we are compelled to take the action that we are taking today," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
At the same time, the company said that the US decision was based on "the current geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns, rather than a comprehensive assessment of the integrity of Kaspersky's products and services." The statement also said that the company's activities do not threaten US national security and that the decision will be appealed.
The sales ban, which will also prohibit downloading software updates, reselling and licensing the product, will take effect on September 29, 100 days after publication, to give companies time to find alternatives.
"We would never give an adversarial nation the keys to our networks or devices, so it's crazy to think that we would continue to allow Russian software with the deepest possible device access to be sold to Americans," said Democratic Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Such a decision could have been made much earlier, as back in 2015, a Bloomberg investigation showed that the antivirus actually had ties to the Russian military and intelligence community. A little later, in 2017, the US banned the use of Kaspersky in government agencies, and now it is also banning its sale.