Any “unilateral administrative sanctions” by the U.S. may provoke a response from Russia, whose administration systems use “a large proportion of American software and hardware solutions in the IT sphere, also in very sensitive areas,” Nikiforov told in an interview on Friday. He refused to identify U.S. software products that may be moved by any complementary sanctions.
A country’s use of “foreign software isn’t fundamentally about data risks as it undergoes screening and certification systems” against possible secret code that may threaten the security of computer networks, he said.
Amid political debate in the U.S. over computer hacking and alleged Kremlin interference in the 2016 presidential elections, the Senate Armed Services Committee has suggested banning the Pentagon “from utilizing software platforms developed by Kaspersky Lab due to statements that the Moscow-based organization might be vulnerable to Russian government authority.” Kaspersky Lab said it doesn’t assist with any government in cyber-espionage, the Interfax news service reported Thursday.
FBI agents questioned at least a dozen employees of Kaspersky Lab in the U.S. this week as a role of a counterintelligence inquiry, according to NBC News, which published that the company has “long been of interest” to the governments. There’s no sign the records were linked to a U.S. investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the elections, the broadcaster reported.
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