Kaspersky Lab asks for proof of espionage allegations

MOSCOW, Oct 12 (PRIME) -- Russian antivirus software maker Kaspersky Lab has denied mass media reports on the exploitation of the company’s products for search of confidential documents in the U.S. and asked for evidence, a company spokesperson said on Thursday.

“Kaspersky Lab has nothing to do with the situation described in the New York Times and other mass media story and has no information about it. We confirm again our readiness to cooperate with the U.S. authorities to respond to any questions about the company’s products and inside procedures,” the spokesperson said.

“Since no proof of what has happened has been demonstrated to Kaspersky Lab, we cannot conduct our own investigation of these groundless statements. If there is any sign that the company’s infrastructure was used by third parties, we are asking those with checkable information to give it to us.”

The New York Times reported that Israeli special services had detected hackers that tracked computers all over the world via Kaspersky Lab’s program on Russian government’s orders. Israeli hackers broke Kaspersky Lab’s system and warned the U.S., which deleted the company’s products from state computers.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, quoting current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter, that the Russian government had used Kaspersky Lab’s popular antivirus software to scan computers around the world for classified U.S. government documents and top-secret information secretly, modifying the program to turn it into an espionage tool.

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