FCC puts Kaspersky on security threat list, says it poses “unacceptable risk”
Enlarge / Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and founder of Moscow-based Kaspersky, at the 2020 World Internet Conference (WIC) at Wuzhen, China. (credit: Getty Images)
The Federal Communications Commission on Friday determined that security products from Kaspersky posed an unacceptable risk to US national security and added the company to a covered list of other firms not eligible for FCC funds.
The move adds Kaspersky to the same covered list that Huawei and ZTE landed on in 2021. Besides its Moscow headquarters, the company's founder, Eugene Kaspersky, attended a KGB-sponsored technical college and has long been accused of having ties to Russian military and intelligence services.
Kaspersky, which was already banned from all US government networks, was one of three firms added to the covered list on Friday. China Mobile and China Telecom were the other two.