The dispute between the United States government through the FBI and the Russian security company Kaspersky is well underway. US authorities have banned the company's antivirus from their services, while the FBI has just forwarded a request to the private sector to remove products security of the Russian company from their systems.
The FBI is asking US-based companies to ditch Kaspersky software, as it considers the Russian company to represent a "threat to national security", according to a publication by CyberScoop.
The FBI has begun to exert pressure on US companies to uninstall its security products Kaspersky from their systems earlier this year, and the source who disclosed it asked not to be named for obvious reasons. The companies that belong to the energy sector and those that use industrial systems control (ICS) as well as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are at the top of the risk list.
Energy companies are under particular pressure from the FBI as US authorities worry about recent attacks that have brought down the power grid in Ukraine and linked to Russian groups hackers.
The reason why the FBI is pushing to get rid of Kaspersky's software is the alleged relationship between the security company and Russia.
The US administration claims that many of today's security company employees are former Russian intelligence agents and that Russian laws could allow the government to control a local business and use it to spy on other nations.
Kaspersky has already responded to all these allegations, explaining that there are no ties not only with Russia but also with no other government. The Russian company has even offered to testify before the US Congress and deliver the source code of its software for further checks.
