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This takes us back to March 2023. A few days after the start of the Russian attack against Ukraine, France and Italy issued warnings: be careful of antiviruses from the Russian company Kaspersky. These IT solutions risked being misused by Moscow. Since then, the Russian computer publisher had gone under the radar.
But on Thursday, Washington struck hard. All Kaspersky software will be banned from American soil. This is an important decision, of course broader in scope than that taken in 2017, when this software was banned within American federal agencies. Why such a ban? The United States does not say it clearly: it is a decision “vital for our internal security”, while “Russia has repeatedly shown that it has the capacity and the intention to exploit Russian companies” , said senior American officials.
But no evidence of manipulation, espionage or infiltration has been put forward. Which is very reminiscent of the banning of the Chinese Huawei, on the basis of assumptions, but never through the provision of evidence.
We will have to monitor this situation closely, because it particularly concerns us. Many Swiss people use Kaspersky products. And the company established a very important data center several years ago, particularly for its European customers, near Zurich. Does this American ban risk encouraging the company to concentrate all its activities in Switzerland? Or on the contrary does it threaten the very survival of Kaspersky? The coming months will be decisive for the company.
