Cybersecurity

‘Kaspersky Lab in crosshairs since exposing US & Israeli spies behind Stuxnet’ – fmr MI5 agent

The campaign to discredit Kaspersky Lab dates back to 2010, when the Russian-based cybersecurity firm uncovered the origin of the Stuxnet malicious computer worm which ruined Iran's nuclear centrifuges, experts in the field told RT.

Kaspersky Lab, founded in Moscow in 1997, has been a world leader in cybersecurity for decades, taking pride in working outside of any government’s sphere of influence. US intelligence agencies, however, seem to consider the Russian firm a competitive challenge, cybersecurity experts say.

“Kaspersky is highly reputable. It has been operating for a couple of decades. It has 400 million users around the world, including until very recently the American government,” former MI5 analyst Annie Machon said. “So of course if they are doing it, other countries are going to do it to a competitor corporation around the world too. Obviously, the CIA would be interested in a very successful Russian-based company that offers protection on the internet.”

“Kaspersky [has] one of the most successful security teams worldwide. Don’t forget that Kaspersky was the security firm that first of all discovered the NSA-linked group of activities involved in cyber espionage activities worldwide,” Pierluigi Paganini, head of cybersecurity at Grant Thornton Consultants, told RT.