Eugene Kaspersky - CEO, Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is poised to hand over its source code to the United States authorities in a bid to put to rest continued agitation from some government quarters that the company is not to be trusted.
The cyber security company’s founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, who recently met with channel partners in Australia and New Zealand, said in a blog post published on 30 June, that his company has “nothing to hide”.
“OK…I cannot change where I grew up or where I started my company, but I’ve dedicated my entire career to protecting the world from cyber threats,” he wrote. “Even though we’ve successfully protected people and businesses for more than 20 years, we might actually be banned from being used in select U.S. government agencies. How did we get here?
“In addition, we’ve offered the US government any assistance it might need to help clarify the ongoing confusion regarding the falsely perceived threat they wrongly believe our products and technologies pose.
“We’re even willing to meet with any of them and give them our source code to thoroughly review it, as we’ve got nothing to hide. We want the government, our users and the public to fully understand that having Russian roots does not make us guilty,” he said.
The move comes after US senators sought to ban the Russian-headquartered cyber security company late last month from use by the military over fears it could be vulnerable to “Russian Government influence”, according to Reuters.
Kaspersky went on to point that, as a private company, the firm that bears his name has no ties to any government, and has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with cyber-espionage efforts.
“And every time we’re accused, we refute the false allegations, respond with the actual facts of the matter, and tell the world about it on a public forum of some sort,” Kaspersky said.
“Regardless of these attacks, we don’t let them stop us from fulfilling our mission – protecting people and businesses around the world from any cyber threats,” he said.
The promise to hand over the source code comes as Kaspersky Lab works to bring US-based software giant, Microsoft, to task over antitrust complaints stemming from the company’s allegedly using its in-built Windows Defender to block rival security products.
Last month, Kaspersky Lab reportedly filed antitrust complaints against Microsoft with the European Commission, following a similar move in Russia.
