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Kaspersky repeats offer: America can see my source code

Fighting to head off Department of Defense blacklisting

Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the eponymous antivirus firm, has reiterated his offer to give the US government access to his source code.

The company is moving to try and head off budget legislation which, as we wrote last week, would shut Kaspersky out of American military contracts.

The US Senate committee that's proposed the ban cites concerns about the company's alleged links to the Russian government.

Visiting Australia in May for the CeBIT conference, Kaspersky said he was willing to let the US look through his company's products' source code, and in an interview with the Associated Press over the weekend reiterated the offer.

Speaking at his Moscow HQ, Kaspersky said: "If the United States needs, we can disclose the source code," adding that he's prepared to testify to US lawmakers if needed.

He also claimed that unnamed government agencies – not necessarily Russian – had tried to gauge his interest in moving from defensive research to offensive, but he said: "I don't even want to talk about it."

Kaspersky-the-founder also suggested Kaspersky-the-company could conduct some of its research in the USA, if that helped.

The company has been suffering escalating attacks in the US. Before the Senate's Armed Services Committee made its recommendation, several Kaspersky staff in America were raided by FBI agents and questioned. The Feds reportedly told them there was no criminal investigation, but that the FBI wanted to know how (and if) any information was shared with Russia.

As The Register noted at the time of the raids, both founder and company have been under attack by way of various hit-pieces since at least 2015. ®

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