The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned twelve Kaspersky Lab executives for operating in the technology sector of Russia.
These sanctions came after the Biden administration announced yesterday the ban of sales and software updates for Kaspersky antivirus software in the USA, which started in July, over potential cybersecurity risks to national security.
In addition, the Department of Commerce designated AO Kaspersky Lab and OOO Kaspersky Group (Russia), and Kaspersky Labs Limited (United Kingdom) to the Entity List, preventing any US business from conducting business with them.
"All the individuals below were designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy," reads the OFAC announcement.
Today, OFAC announced sanctions on twelve Kaspersky Lab employees in leadership positions. The twelve sanctioned Kaspersky employees and their positions are:
- Andrei Gennadyevich Tikhonov (Tikhonov) - Board member and CFO.
- Daniil Sergeyevich Borshchev (Borshchev) - Board member and Deputy CEO of Strategy and Economics
- Andrei Anatolyevich Efremov (Efremov) - Board member and Chief Business Development Officer (CBDO)
- Igor Gennadyevich Chekunov (Chekunov) - Board member Chief Legal Officer (CLO).
- Andrey Petrovich Dukhvalov (Dukhvalov) - Vice President and Director of Future Technologies
- Andrei Anatolyevich Suvorov (Suvorov) - Head of Kaspersky Operating System Business Unit
- Denis Vladimirovich Zenkin (Zenkin) - Head of Corporate Communications
- Marina Mikhaylovna Alekseeva (Alekseeva) - Chief Human Resources (HR) Officer (CHRO)
- Mikhail Yuryevich Gerber (Gerber) - Executive Vice President of Consumer Business
- Anton Mikhaylovich Ivanov (Ivanov) - Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
- Kirill Aleksandrovich Astrakhan (Astrakhan) - Executive Vice President for Corporate Business
- Anna Vladimirovna Kulashova (Kulashova) - Managing Director for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
While many of these members report directly to the CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, the US government says they have not sanctioned Kaspersky Lab, its parent or subsidiary companies, or its CEO.
The Treasury Department says that the employees are sanctioned pursuant to Executive Order 14024, which states that people determined to work in the technology sector of the Russian Federation can fall under sanctions.
"to operate or have operated in the technology sector or the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy, or any other sector of the Russian Federation economy as may be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State," reads the Executive Order.
Those sanctioned have had their assets in the US frozen and can no longer access them until the sanctions are lifted.
BleepingComputer contacted Kaspersky for a statement regarding these sanctions and will update the article if we receive a response.
Comments
powerspork - 4 months ago
I am not pro Russia by any means but this seems like a pretty stupid move. Sanctioned for "working in the tech sector". Really? And with no hard evidence to boot. Suspicions = sanctions. Are they going to start sanctioning random Russian programmers for being able to write malicious code for the state? Are all Russian cybersecurity researchers a target now?
Why not sanction a group that you have hard evidence proving they are contributing to a crime, such as munitions manufacturers building the bombs to drop on Ukraine civilians? This move is against a private business and is akin to pointing your war efforts against civilians instead of the real problem, the government.
You are telling the whole world that you will freeze their US investments and assets because they are "too sus". That's one way to reduce foreign investment here. If you wanted to do that, reduce something useful, like foreigners buying up all our land and jacking the price so high that Americans can't afford it anymore.
NoneRain - 4 months ago
In War you don't want software that can potentially be used to gather intel or start an attack from inside your country.
"Why not sanction a group that you have hard evidence [...]"
- The gov. already did that. They are now "closing the circle" to further impact Russia economy (that moved to a war economy), and their presence in important segments (like cybersec and transportation of products).
"That's one way to reduce foreign investment here."
- Not really. No business man expected that Russian stuff would thrive in US, even before the war.
In this case, most companies moved away from Kaspersky a long time ago (5-10 years) in the US. Many moved to CrowdStrike, that is American, but also to Bitdefender and ESET, that are not. So, while it may look like a disincentive for the foreign market, the investments just shifted to other foreign companies that were more than happy to accept it, and it's crystal clear that US is not attacking any sus company, but Russian ones (and others directly related to them).
TalosTheKing - 4 months ago
"This move is against a private business and is akin to pointing your war efforts against civilians instead of the real problem, the government."
- This presumes the Russian government has no influence over Kaspersky, as though the government conducts no interference whatsoever within the company. It's possible given the state of the Russian government, that they'd leverage the intelligence and capabilities of Kaspersky against their adversaries, and we have to question whether that's a risk we'd be willing to take as Americans.
Winston2021 - 4 months ago
LOL, I've laughed at the "Cold War is over" claims since they began because they were as likely to be accurate as saying "war is over." SORRY, human nature which hasn't changed throughout human history prevents anything like that.