They went to sleep with Kaspersky and woke up with UltraAV

Following the Biden administration's announcement banning Kaspersky Labs (KL) from selling or updating antivirus software in the United States starting September 29, 2024, the company reached an agreement with Pango Group to automatically transition all of its customers Kaspersky in the US on its UltraAV protection product. kaspersky ultraav

The general feeling from the users was not pleasant after they suddenly saw on their computer an application that they had not installed.

Kaspersky has partnered with UltraAV in an undisclosed deal to replace the antivirus on over 1 million of its users' PCs. Kaspersky Antivirus was automatically uninstalled on users' computers and silently replaced by UltraAV.

This of course is malware behavior.

UltraAV is based in Boston and owned by Kaspersky partner Pango. The company is the same that owns UltraVPN and Hotspot Shield. The Register he says that Pango was acquired by Aura, a Massachusetts company, in 2021. Aura acquired Max Secure Software, a security company from India, two years ago. UltraAV uses the engine created by Max Secure software.

A bit confusing situation but for everything there is a reason, maybe even an excuse.

According to Kaspersky, the company announced the transition to US customers on September 5 via email, in-app notifications, on their MyKaspersky account pages and through Kaspersky Labs websites.

On the other hand UltraAV tried to assure that it is a competent security company that can replace Kaspersky software.

It states:

UltraAV is a mature technology, developing and improving for more than 20 years. It incorporates the latest threats and leverages advanced techniques, including artificial intelligence and sophisticated heuristics to detect malware. With Ultra AV, users will get protection comparable to what they had with Kaspersky at the same price. In addition to traditional antivirus and VPN services, UltraAV will also include identity theft protections, transaction monitoring, real-time alerts for signs of fraud, and $1 million in identity theft security.