Kaspersky leaves the US, but before leaving it has installed new software on its users without their permission

Kaspersky leaves the US, but before leaving it has installed new software on its users without their permission

The last few years have not been good for Kaspersky. The once prestigious cybersecurity company, based in Moscow and known among consumers mainly for its antivirus, has been finding increasingly more restrictions on its activity in the United States and other countries. In fact, the North American country banned its use last June after including it in the US Department of Commerce Entity List that are considered a threat to national security. A company or individual on that list is prohibited from doing business with American companies and accessing their technologies, which has led Kaspersky to close its operations there.

The government gave Kaspersky up to September 29 to stop sending updates to its consumer antivirus software, allowing users to search for alternatives. However, The last one they have received has replaced Kaspersky with another antivirus called UltraAV and the UltraVPN VPN. The Russian company explained in an email to its users that it has partnered with UltraAV ‘to ensure the continued protection of US-based customers who will no longer have access to Kaspersky protections,’ but he didn’t point out that the software would be installed without his permission.

At the beginning of the month, Pangothe US-based company that owns UltraAV, explained in a statement that it had reached an agreement with Kaspersky to acquire approximately 1 million subscribers of the Russian firm in the United States to those who would provide their cybersecurity services. ‘The good news is that it really no action required from customers‘ he said then Neill Featherpresident and chief operating officer of Pango.

That a program appears on a computer without the user having installed it is usually a sign of malware. Which in this case are two signs given that some users also found that they couldn’t uninstall itsince it reappeared after restarting the computer, according to Bleeping Computer. Taking into account that Kaspersky is leaving the United States because it is considered a risk to national security, this way of saying goodbye does not help allay suspicions.

Robert Joyceformer director of cybersecurity at the NSA or US National Security Agency, has stated in X about this situation that ‘that is why giving root-level access to Kaspersky was a big risk. Users were “migrated” (they uninstalled the software and a totally different product was automatically installed). They had complete control of their team‘.