Kaspersky has announced it’s closing its U.S. business and laying off its employees. Nearly after a month, this decision has been made following the US Department of Commerce and enforced the ban.
Kaspersky said that beginning July 20, it will start gradually winding down its U.S. operations as a direct result of the ban, despite initially saying it was going to fight the ban in court. It is prohibited from rolling out new security updates to existing customers starting Sept. 29.
The decision to ban Kaspersky was made on national security grounds. The Commerce Department claims that Kaspersky’s continued operations in the U.S. presented a national security risk given the Russian government’s offensive cyber capabilities and its capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations.
The ban did not come as a surprise post-Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, though it always denied being controlled by the Russian government, Kaspersky had been in the spotlight previously for its Russian origins.
The first ban on Kaspersky dates back to 2017 when the Trump administration banned software from the company being used by most U.S. government agencies. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security then ordered government agencies to stop using Kaspersky software later the same year.
Kaspersky fought the initial bans in court but ultimately failed, and the company’s products were permanently banned from government use in 2019.
