Yesterday, Bloomberg ran a story entitled "Kaspersky Lab Has Been Working With Russian Intelligence", in which the editors said that "Emails show the security-software maker developed products for the FSB and accompanied agents on raids." Eugene Kaspersky, Kaspersky CEO, naturally responded by saying that claims about Kaspersky Lab's ties to the Kremlin are "unfounded conspiracy theories" and "total BS." Bloomberg Businessweek even goes so far as to say that Kaspersky Lab has "maintained a much closer working relationship with Russia's main intelligence agency, the FSB, than it has publicly admitted. It has developed security technology at the spy agency's behest and worked on joint projects the CEO knew would be embarrassing if made public."

In the same article, Bloomberg's editors go on to say that "The U.S. government hasn't identified any evidence connecting Kaspersky Lab to Russia's spy agencies (...) In June, FBI agents visited a number of the company's U.S. employees at their homes, asking to whom they reported and how much guidance they received from Kaspersky's Moscow headquarters. And a bill was introduced in Congress that would ban the U.S. military from using any Kaspersky products (...)", with one senator calling ties between the company and the Kremlin "very alarming."Oleg Demidov, a consultant for researcher PIR Center in Moscow who studies Russian cyber attacks, said that "This is quite useless to find any real evidence, any real cases where Kaspersky Lab would violate their privacy policies and transfer some data from U.S. customers, from U.S. enterprise clients, to Russian intelligence or FSB."Kaspersky Lab has already responded to Bloomberg's article, in a post titled "Kaspersky Lab response clarifying the inaccurate statements published in a Bloomberg Businessweek article on July 11, 2017.". They go point to point against Bloomberg's article, and in fact, there are some things that do call out for our attention. For example, in Bloomberg's story, the editors say that "Kaspersky Lab confirmed the emails are authentic," while in Kaspersky's response, "Kaspersky Lab never confirmed the emails the media outlet claims to have are authentic, as the media outlet refused to share them with the company for validation to protect an anonymous source." The Bloomberg report also claims that Kaspersky Lab's former chief legal officer, Igor Chekunov, "was a former policeman and KGB officer." Kaspersky responded by saying that "Reporting it this way is misleading, as Mr. Chekunov worked for the Border Service in the Soviet Union - serving obligatory military service for two years. At that time, the Border Service was a part of KGB structure." I'll let our readers make out what they want of these, and will leave sources for both the Bloomberg article and Kaspersky's response below.The reverberations from this Bloomberg piece have already struck Kaspersky Lab, though; even as "The U.S. government hasn't identified any evidence connecting Kaspersky Lab to Russia's spy agencies (...)", Reuters reports that the US government has already removed Kaspersky Lab from the U.S. General Services Administration's, a government-approved list of vendors for contracts that cover information technology services and digital photographic equipment. Without their company on that list, Kaspersky's products are effectively barred from being used in US government settings through official channels, even though US agencies will still be able to use the company's product if they do purchase them through external channels. The move was taken "after review and careful consideration," a GSA spokeswoman said, adding that GSA's priorities "are to ensure the integrity and security of U.S. government systems and networks." A tremendous record in "review and careful consideration" timeframes, considering this decision comes only hours after the original Bloomberg article.