Kaspersky Labs U.S. Sales Drop
Over the last few months, Kaspersky has faced major hurdles when it came to their U.S. sales. This appears to be a direct result of the U.S. government investigating the alleged ties between Kaspersky Labs and the Russian government. Very little information is being disclosed to the public, regarding the findings of this investigation. However, so far the U.S. government has removed the Russian-based security software from the GSA, a list of government approved security programs that may be installed on government devices. They have also banned the security solution from all military devices. Just last week, the federal government was ordered to remove Kaspersky from all devices within the next 90 days.
This has caused a ripple effect throughout Kaspersky customers and retailers.
Russian-Based Software Company Loses Major Customers and Retailers
Modern Healthcare reported if the Congressional ban on the company sticks, the healthcare industry will too stray from Kaspersky. Global security strategist, Richard Henderson, stated,
“…I think we can expect a lot of healthcare organizations to err on the side of caution and replace Kaspersky products with others. The unquantifiable risk for hospital CISOs is too great to ignore.”
West Virginia University (WVU) also plans to replace the Russian-based security program with an alternative security solution. WVU currently uses Kaspersky on 17,000 endpoints. The university has assured staff and students their information is secure while they transition to another security program. According to the Charleston Gazette Mail, the WVU staff closed a security hole left open by Kaspersky which would have allowed user data to be sent to the company’s headquarters in Moscow.
Beyond current users, Kaspersky has lost two major retailers in the last week. Best Buy dropped Kaspersky from their shelves last week. Within days of Best Buy doing so, Office Depot decided to pull the plug on their relationship with Kaspersky as well. Office Depot is offering in-store assistance with the removal of Kaspersky. ABC News reported Office Depot is replacing the security program with McAfee. Although McAfee is headquartered in the U.S., it develops its software in India and is researched in the Philippines.
