Several US intelligence chiefs have claimed they don’t trust Russian AV company Kaspersky Lab, as fears grow about the Kremlin’s potential reach into US institutions.
CIA director, Michael Pompeo; NSA supremo, Michael Rogers; director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats; acting FBI boss, Andrew McCabe; Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, were at a Senate hearing yesterday on threats to the US from abroad.
They reportedly expressed concern over Kaspersky Lab software, but failed to go into any more detail.
“We are very concerned about it and we are focused on it very closely”, McCabe reportedly said.
Their unspecified concerns are presumably tied to the fact the global cybersecurity firm is headquartered in Moscow and therefore could be influenced by the Putin regime.
However, Kaspersky Lab hit back with a strongly worded statement:
“As a private company, Kaspersky Lab has no ties to any government, and the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts. The company has a 20-year history in the IT security industry of always abiding by the highest ethical business practices, and Kaspersky Lab believes it is completely unacceptable that the company is being unjustly accused without any hard evidence to back up these false allegations. Kaspersky Lab is available to assist all concerned government organisations with any ongoing investigations, and the company ardently believes a deeper examination of Kaspersky Lab will confirm that these allegations are unfounded.”
As the hearing was in session, Kaspersky Lab founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, was doing a Q&A on Reddit, where he offered to testify in front of the Senate.
“I respectfully disagree with their opinion, and I’m very sorry these gentlemen can’t use the best software on the market because of political reasons”, he added.
The concerns expressed by US officials are likely to have been sparked by Russian meddling in the US and French elections, which all spy bosses at the hearing confirmed had happened.
President Donald Trump did nothing to allay concerns about his own team's links to the Kremlin when he sacked FBI director James Comey this week as the latter sought to continue his investigation into these links.