The European Parliament voted on a report in which Polish representative, MEP Fotyga included an amendment referencing Kaspersky Lab which is based on untrue statements. Although this report has no legislative power it demonstrates a distinct lack of respect for the company which has been a firm friend of Europe in the fight against cybercrime . It is for that reason that Kaspersky Lab has taken the difficult decision to temporarily halt our numerous collaborative European cybercrime-fighting initiatives, including that with Europol, until we receive further official clarifications from the European Parliament.
On account of this news, we will regretfully have to pause one of our successful joint initiatives – NoMoreRansom project – recognised by the European Parliament Research Services as a successful case of public-private cooperation in their recent report – helped many organisations and users to decrypt files on their devices, saving them from financial losses. We hope to be able to resume this and other European collaborative efforts soon.
Kaspersky Lab and its CEO Eugene Kaspersky believe that the decision of the European Parliament encourages cybercrime in Europe. We believe that is does not contribute towards building an open and secure Digital Single Market but rather make it more fragmented and less competitive.
Our 400 million users around the globe, trust us to protect their data. We will continue to successfully work with institutions and organisations to deliver a tangible positive impact by fighting cybercrime and defending European and global citizens from cyberthreats. Indeed, in April the European Commission officially stated that ‘the Commission has no indication for any danger associated with this anti-virus engine’.
As a sign of our commitment to transparency and openness, we have just announced our decision to open a world-first new Transparency Centre in Switzerland where we will move part of our R&D operations that deal with data collection and processing and will be open to third parties reviewing our software.
Kaspersky Lab remains willing to meet with MEPs to address any questions about the business, its leadership, expertise, technologies and methodology that they may have.” — Attributable to Kaspersky Lab.
