U.S. blacklists Kaspersky antivirus as a risk to national security

[Eugene]

Source: PCWorld

U.S. blacklists Kaspersky antivirus as a risk to national security

By Mark Hachman
Senior Editor, PCWorld MAR 28, 2022 9:59 AM PDT

Antimalware provider Kaspersky Lab has been blacklisted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, adding its name alongside Huawei and ZTE as companies that are deemed a threat to national security.

The FCC maintains a list of companies which are “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national security or the security and safety of United States persons,” and added Kaspersky to the list on Friday. Officially, the list now includes China Mobile International USA Inc., China Telecom (Americas) Corp, and AO Kaspersky Labs, as well as their subsidiaries.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said in a statement that adding those companies to the list “will help secure our networks from threats posed by Chinese and Russian state backed entities.” If a company is on the restricted list, it can’t receive federal subsidies, Bloomberg reported. The U.S. federal government banned the use of Kaspersky software in federal information systems in 2017 because of concerns about Kaspersky’s links to the Russian government.

Individual users may continue to use products blacklisted by the FCC if they choose to do so, however. Kaspersky does not appear in PCWorld’s list of the best antivirus programs for your PC but does appear in the current list of PCWorld’s best free antivirus programs for Windows. If you try to install Kaspersky’s free tools, Windows Defender may flag Kaspersky as dangerous. We encountered the issue in our testing, though it wasn’t clear why the issues occurred.

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Read more: https://www.pcworld.com/article/626854/kaspersky-blacklisted-as-a-risk-to-u-s-national-security.html

[WA-03 Democrat]

1. About time!

[TheBlackAdder]

2. THIS! 👍

[COL Mustard]

3. Glad that's happening.....

I don't mean to be Russophobic, but I never trusted that virus protection. Of course I guess you could say that McAfee software is a killer.



(I know, he sold it long ago but still.....)

[twodogsbarking]

4. The disease that never goes away; until you get a new computer.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

5. Didn't Kaspersky get flagged as dangerous years ago?

They finally go around to blacklisting it?

[hlthe2b]

6. Stopped using it several years ago, albeit it was always highly rated and one the most user-friendly

yet comprehensive programs I'd used over the past couple of decades. Obviously, no one wants to chance what may be "backdoored" in it. But, as I waste considerable time each week dealing with the immensely bloated Norton package, I can't say I don't miss it.

[Tetrachloride]

7. Corporations and government needs to be serious on security.

My main computer isn’t connected to the internet at the moment. Every couple of weeks, i might connect it for an hour.

I have 6 core strategies that I use, aside from anti virus software and more strategies which are secondary.

It’s been a few years since I found something untoward.

[SheltieLover]

8. Never should have been allowed here imo

[Takket]

9. i ditched kaspersky a few years ago when we were warned about it

bitdefender has treated me well, if any of you are looking for an alternative.

[brooklynite]

10. Ironically, you can get antivirus software developed by Ukranians.....

https://mackeeper.com