Kaspersky closing down in the US in 20 July

Kaspersky Lab, a prominent Russian cybersecurity firm, has informed its employees in the U.S. that they are being laid off and that the company is closing its U.S. operations. This decision follows the U.S. Commerce Department's announcement last month that it would ban the sale of Kaspersky software in the United States, effective July 20. Kaspersky has been active in the U.S. market since 2005.

The closure of Kaspersky Lab's U.S. operations follows a series of events stemming from the company's antivirus software detecting and uploading NSA tools to its servers. These tools, which included Office cracks, were flagged by Kaspersky's antivirus as malware. This incident led to suspicions and allegations from the U.S. government, accusing Kaspersky of working for the Russian government. The situation intensified tensions, culminating in the U.S. Commerce Department's decision to ban the sale of Kaspersky software in the United States starting July 20, prompting the firm to cease its U.S. operations.

According to Kaspersky’s report, on September 11, 2014, their home antivirus software detected a piece of malware linked to the “Equation Group,” Kaspersky's internal codename for what is believed to be the NSA’s hacking team. The contractor who triggered this detection later disabled the Kaspersky antivirus software, though the exact date is not logged. However, on October 4, 2014, the contractor reactivated the antivirus software after downloading and installing malware while attempting to pirate Microsoft Office.

Kaspersky detailed the incident, stating, "The user appears to have downloaded and installed pirated software on his machines, as indicated by an illegal Microsoft Office activation key generator. The malware dropped from the trojanized keygen was a full-blown backdoor, which may have allowed third parties access to the user’s machine." This sequence of events contributed to the controversy and subsequent U.S. government actions against Kaspersky.

Recent complaints have emerged suggesting that Kaspersky's AI technology is being used to power drones in the Ukrainian War. These allegations have further strained the company's relationship with the U.S.

Kaspersky is one the best AVs on the market if not the best among all, claiming that Kaspersky is a backdoor for the Russian Government , but rest of the AVs that are Japanese/German/American/British etc , so many companies there are on market , but claiming that one is a backdoor and the rest is ok because they are friendly countries in term of politics is kind of funny

Kasperksy on the NSA incident were able to detect and suspect other files to be malware and uploaded them to their cloud service which the user agrees on upon installing the software , then it has been able to detect the hacking tools that NSA detected and then US government became extremely sad that even their NSA agency is using Russian software to protect their PCs?

So if it was Symantec or another American AV company that detected this , will it stay silent on those malware and then we can pretend those are the perfect AVs that don't report goverment's backdoors and hacking tools?

Quote

Kaspersky denied that anyone used its software to search for secret information on customer machines and said that the tools on the NSA worker's machine were detected in the same way that all antivirus software detects files it deems suspicious and then quarantines or extracts them for analysis. Once Kaspersky discovered that the code its antivirus software detected on the NSA worker's machine were not malicious programs but source code in development by the U.S. government for its hacking operations, CEO Eugene Kaspersky says he ordered workers to delete the code.

Antivirus software – whether made by Kaspersky or U.S.-based firms like Symantec – requires excessive privileges and access to files in order to scan them for malicious code. Given the potential for abuse, and Russia's adversarial relationship with the U.S., the government has deemed Kaspersky software a risk, though officials have never provided evidence that Kaspersky or the Russian government used its software to spy on customers.

Quote taken from ZeroDay website

Yet there is no proof or evidence that Kaspersky was spying on US government and the US government proves their points with the "trust me bro" way and yet the Kaspersky software was able to do it's job perfectly and detect malicious software which all AVs should have done this , but the drama here is that russian AV detected that , and not mistake of the programmer that programs hacking tools yet having an AV active with cracked Office.

The US goverment acted like the spoiled child that got caught cheating in school and now he is mad and want to ban the security person who caught him.

Do we recommend Kaspersky?

Yes! Kaspersky is a highly recommended AV software that is able to detect and protect

ESET is another option for people who have Russophobia.

Yet is the Russian Government more interested about what the average US person do and when he watches porn? I thought the American Government is more interested and spying about it's own citizens more than what a foreign government do , we have heard Edward Snowden and Julian Assange what they have leaked in terms of what the US government do to their own citizens in the terms of protecting them/nation's interest by spying on everything they do.

We can take a look at AV - Comparatives test results here for non-biased recommendations :

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-february-may-2024/