Kaspersky Lab announced today that it is temporarily suspending its cooperation with Europol following the vote on a controversial proposal in the European Parliament today.
The proposal was voted today in a plenary session of the European Parliament and received 476 votes in favor, 151 against and 36 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) abstained.
Among the clauses of the motion is one calling on EU states to review the software and equipment they use in the IT infrastructure of the EU institutions.
“On the basis of today’s decision by the EU Parliament, we are forced to freeze our cooperation with organizations such as Europol and NoMoreRansom,” he added. “The way in which we carried out this public-private partnership, unfortunately, ceased until the withdrawal of the European Parliament’s decision.
“Although this report has no legislative power, it shows a clear lack of respect for the company that has been a firm friend of Europe in the fight against cybercrime,” a Kaspersky spokesman added to the CEO’s opinion today.
EU guilty of the consequences of this report
All the blame for this debacle lies strictly with the EU Parliament and its Committee on Foreign Affairs, which drafted the report.
The inclusion of Kaspersky’s name in the report is mind-boggling.
In April of this year, before the motion was last drafted, an EU representative answered a question about rumors that Russian intelligence was using Kaspersky’s products to gain access to classified information.
The EU spokesman, responding on behalf of the Commission, said that the Commission[had] no indication of any danger associated with[the Kaspersky antivirus engine]’.
Despite this, the company name was later included as an example of “confirmed malicious” programs in the final text of the movement.
The Russian AV vendor is now in danger that EU states seeking to strengthen the joint cyber-defense strategy may be taking the report literally and enforcing the bans without being provided with any tangible evidence, simply by going to its text.
The Russian antivirus provider has been trying to clear its name for months after its products were banned from government networks in the U.S., the Netherlands and the United Kingdom also recommended against using the company’s software.
Links to Motion A8-0189/2018 documents
The document advises EU states to exclude and ban programs and computers that have been confirmed as malicious.
The document specifically mentions Kaspersky Lab software
The problem that infuriated Kaspersky Lab officials was that this particular clause specifically mentioned the Russian-based antivirus provider when the authors of the movement tried to give an example of a “confirmed malicious” product.
Calls on the EU to undertake a comprehensive review of software, information technology and communications equipment and infrastructure used in the institutions to exclude potentially dangerous programs and devices, and to ban those that have been confirmed as malicious, such as Kaspersky Labs
The fact that he was summoned in an official EU document, although he had no legislative power, was not well received by Kaspersky officials.
The company was one of the first antivirus companies to sign collaboration agreements with Europol and state-level law enforcement agencies.
We have protected the EU for 20 years working with law enforcement leading to multiple arrests of CYBERCRIMINALS. Based upon today’s decision from the EU Parliament, we are forced to freeze our cooperation with orgs including @Europol & #NoMoreRansom pic.twitter.com/7dSGn9Bycw
— Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) June 13, 2018
In addition, along with Europol, Dutch Police and McAfee (formerly Intel Security), Kaspersky was one of the founding members of NoMoreRansom, a project that helps ransomware victims by providing free decryption.
The European Parliament’s research services recognized the NoMoreRansom project as a successful case of public-private cooperation in a recent report.
Kaspersky stops cooperation between Europol and NoMoreRansom
Following today’s vote,** Kaspersky Lab formally announced that it would temporarily suspend its cooperation with Europol officials and the NoMoreRansom project.**
“We have protected the EU for 20 years working with law enforcement leading to multiple arrests of cybercriminals,” wrote Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky today on Twitter, following the EU Parliament vote.