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Loading...Fearing spying concerns the US administration headed by Donald Trump has decided to ban Kaspersky security products from its government networks. The US Senate officially on Monday voted to ban the Moscow-based security firm’s products, citing the reason that the security company may be used as a pawn by Kremlin, Russia, and therefore poses a national security risk.
This is a huge setback for the 20-year-old antivirus company which has about 400 million customers across the globe. Kaspersky, on its part, has continuously denied the espionage allegations placed upon it by the US and has even offered up its source code to the government so that it can inspect the same. But the fact that the source code could be changed at “any moment” is something which has impelled the US to arrive at such a decision.
Cyber Security Community Expresses Concern
The cyber-security community has expressed its concern over this ban stating that “introducing such national borders to the cybersecurity industry will end up making us less safe”. This is indeed true because there has been no real divide within the cybersecurity community so far and it usually comes together easily to fight various security breaches which our world is confronted with. But after this move, can one expect Kaspersky to fight cybercrimes which may occur within the US?
More On The Imposed Ban
The ban introduced by the US government applies only to the civilian and the military agencies at the moment. But considering how unpredictable Donald Trump and Co. can be at times, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if the US government decides to introduce a blanket-ban on Kaspersky products soon.
In a statement released to the public, the DoHS (Department of Homeland Security) orders all federal governments and agencies to “identify any presence of Kaspersky products on their information systems in the next 30 days, develop detailed plans to remove and discontinue present and future use of the products in the next 60 days”.
Apart from the fact that Kaspersky has its roots in Russia, the fact that the software gains access to files and the computers on which it is installed, is what has propelled the US government to formulate the theory that the Russian government could use Kaspersky as a pawn for spying on the sensitive government-related data belonging to its country.
So What Now?
Unfortunately, our world sways in the direction the superpowers like US sway. Therefore it’s best to move away from the unfortunate Kaspersky antivirus-related products (maybe even from the free virus protection which the company offers) and embrace other security products from reputed organizations which have been around for a long time and therefore are reliable. Because you don’t want to be using an antivirus solution which can no longer offer you enough support because it has run out of business since it was blacklisted by some bigwigs, do you?
Therefore those of you who’ve been using Kaspersky products, change your mindset and start hunting for other security products that suit your requirements before the cybersecurity industry affected by the new cold war (which may not be as effective as the prevailing one in combating cybercrimes) emerges..
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