The US government has announced sanctions against 12 executives and senior leaders of Russian-based cybersecurity giant Kaspersky.
In a press releasethe Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it designated the 12 company executives to protect Internet users from malicious cyber threats.
“Today’s action against Kaspersky Lab’s leadership underscores our commitment to ensuring the integrity of our cyber sector and protecting our citizens from malicious cyber threats,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. the press release. “The United States will take action where appropriate to hold accountable those who seek to facilitate or otherwise enable these activities.”
The list of people who have been punished includes several members of Kaspersky’s board of directors, including Andrei Anatolyevich Efremov, who is also Kaspersky’s head of business development, and Igor Gennadyevich Chekunov, who serves as the company’s chief legal officer.
Also penalized are Kaspersky’s head of global human resources, Marina Mikhaylovna Alekseev, the company’s head of communications Denis Vladimirovich Zenkin, and chief technology officer Anton Mikhaylovich Ivanov, among others.
OFAC noted that it did not sanction Kaspersky, its parent or subsidiary companies, or the company’s founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky.
A Treasury spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking why Kaspersky’s CEO was not included in the sanctions. A representative for Kaspersky also did not respond to a request for comment.
Today’s sanctions will make it harder for high-profile executives to start a new company and effectively prevent American customers and businesses from paying Kaspersky. Earlier this year, the US government imposed similar sanctions against spyware maker Intellexa and its founder.
The sanctions come a day after the US government announced a “first-of-its-kind” ban on the sale of Kaspersky software in the United States, which will take effect on July 20. Kaspersky will still be able to provide software updates to existing customers, but only until September 29. After that, US customers still using Kaspersky will not be able to receive updates, which will make the antivirus software outdated and potentially unable to stop the latest cyber security threats.
Kaspersky spokesman Sawyer VanHorn said Thursday that the company will challenge the ban.
The US government has for years taken action against Kaspersky over fears that it could be used as a tool to influence the Russian government, to help it hack US targets or otherwise harm national security.
In September 2017, the Trump administration banned the use of the company’s software in government agencies. Earlier that year, Russian government hackers allegedly stole classified US documents from the home computer of an intelligence contractor, which at the time was running Kaspersky anti-virus software.
