FCC finally gets around to banning Kaspersky from telecoms kit

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has woken up and issued a ban on Kaspersky software being used in telecoms kit, months after Washington deemed it a national security risk and blockaded future sales.

The US telecoms regulator dispatched a missive [PDF] yesterday (September 3) to say that as Kaspersky software and services had been added to the "Covered List" of items considered a risk to national defense, telco's that integrate the company's tools or antivirus software will not obtain FCC equipment authorization.

As the FCC notes, the US Department of Commerce published its Final Determination on June 24, stating that Kaspersky's cybersecurity and antivirus poses "undue and unacceptable risks" to the country and its citizens, and the Covered List had been updated accordingly.

The ban on the sale of Kaspersky software to new US customers began on July 20, and as of September 29 the business will be forbidden from distributing software updates and malware signatures to American customers, as The Register previously reported.

The latest order now means that any telecoms operators using Kaspersky software will need to remove it from their networks and choose a new supplier of security tools.

In response to Washington's ban, Kaspersky announced in July that it was shutting down US operations and laying off all employees, understood to be fewer than 50 people. This is hardly surprising, as the ban meant Kaspersky was prohibited "from directly or indirectly providing antivirus software and cyber security products or services in the United States or to US persons."

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As a parting gift to existing customers, the antivirus biz said it would provide six months of security updates for free.

For its part, Kaspersky has denied any claims that it was a security risk and said it proposed an independent verification framework in order to demonstrate there were no backdoors in its products and they had not been compromised by Kremlin spies. It claimed this offer was simply ignored by the US Department of Commerce, which also declined to answer questions from The Register on the matter. ®