by Charles Miller

September 29 could be an important date for a small handful of you, and the reason for this should be of interest to the larger audience. Earlier this summer the U.S. Commerce Department announced a ban to prohibit the sale in the U.S. of antivirus software made by Kaspersky Lab, and that ban goes into effect on September 29.

Given the current political climate it did not come as any surprise to me in 2017 that the U.S. government ordered that all software made by Kaspersky Labs be removed from government computers. The backstory of that 2017 decision is one I will include in a future column. As of September 29 that ban is being pushed on consumers. Kaspersky antivirus products are used by 400 million around the world, and now those users in the U.S. will no longer be able to purchase Kaspersky antivirus or download updates to their antivirus software just because the firm that makes this software happens to be Russian.

Kaspersky Labs has long been considered one of the foremost cybersecurity research firms in the world. It has considerable expertise in designing antivirus software as well as a history of exposing and thwarting the schemes of various cybercriminal gangs. After receiving a KGB-sponsored education at its spy school and then working years as a software engineer for the Soviet military Yevgeny Kaspersky founded the company in 1997. Despite the company's prominence in the field of cybersecurity, the founder's roots in Russia have now fueled suspicions about possible ties to Russia's intelligence agencies. Nobody denies that Kaspersky and Vladimir Putin both worked at the KGB during the same time period.

According to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, "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." At a Congressional hearing the heads of the FBI and the CIA flatly said they were uncomfortable with Kaspersky software running on the systems of their agencies.

So the American government is unhappy and does not like the idea that Russian-made software could be hiding a Trojan. Rest assured the Russians are even more unhappy, and worried, about its bureaucrats and its populace using software created by Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other American companies.

Personally I have some misgivings about blackballing Kaspersky just because their corporate headquarters are located at 39A/2 Leningradskoe Shosse in Moscow, and that happens to be only eight kilometers away from the Kremlin. Among technical people there is no denying that thanks to the work of Kaspersky Lab over the last 25 years the internet is a safer place than it would be without them. To deny the company or any other company access to the American market based on no actionable evidence of any wrongdoing just does not seem justified.

So the big question to ask is who can you trust? Can we trust a Russian company that could be working hand-in-hand with the Russian government to spy on us? Or do we trust an American company that could be operating under a secret National Security Letter that permits the U.S. government to install backdoors into the software we use so it can spy on us?

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Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

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