Kaspersky Lab banned all across Europe #infosec

I am a long time evangelist of not using software that is linked to abusive governments. This applies sadly to a lot of software products and software environments linked to Russia and China.
Regarding this, Kaspersky was one of my main “do not use” advice I was giving to people I know and to job related clients.

I got lots of “raised eyebrows” sometimes because it was still perceived as a good and cheap antivirus.

Now it seems that after US government banned Kaspersky also EU finally takes action.

See some very well written article about the issues here WSJ.

I knew from several sources that even if the Germany’s BSI federal cyber agency see here said that they did not find evidence of spying they still recommended the software use to be limited in the German federal institutions.

Funny think is that I feel sorry for Eugene Kaspersky. He really started his company with good will, but in the wrong country. In countries like Russia at some point you end up being used by the corrupt regime for its own gains. He is like a bird in a golden cage.

I feel sorry for him because he still defends its company even if the evidence is so undeniable that at this point he looks like the famous Iraq propaganda minister.

I was really surprised when he even answered directly to my claim that in several European countries, including German federal institutions, the use of its software was restricted already for a long time.

Again I think he started his company in the wrong country. He could have been another Sergey Brin (Google) but he choose to be used by a dictator.

PS: Kaspersky still has a big presence in Romania and all across Eastern-Europe. That was also a warning sign. Usually when a Russian company is making big pushes to acquire market share in this part of the world it has also geopolitical reasons.