History
The first version of Kaspersky Lab's antivirus software was developed by Eugene Kaspersky in 1989 in response to the Cascade Virus.[20][21] Early versions had just 40 virus definitions and were mostly distributed to friends and family members.[22] Kaspersky continued developing the software at KAMI,[22] resulting in the AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP) product released in 1992.[23] It was popularized in 1994 after a competitive analysis by Hamburg University gave his software first place.[24][25][23][26]
In 1997, Eugene Kaspersky, his wife Natalya Kaspersky, and Alexey De-Monderik left KAMI to form Kaspersky Lab,[27] and to continue developing the antivirus product, then called AVP.[30][31] The product was renamed Kaspersky Anti-Virus after an American company registered the AVP trademark in the US.[30]
In 1998, a Taiwanese student released a virus called CIH. During the first three weeks of the outbreak, Kaspersky Lab's AVP was the only software at the time able to remove it. This increased demand and led to deals with antivirus companies in Japan, Finland and Germany to integrate AVP into their software.[22][30][32]
According to WIRED, Kaspersky's software was "advanced for the time". For example, it was the first software to monitor viruses in an isolated quarantine.[33] The company's revenue grew 280 percent from 1998 to 2000, with about 60 percent of its revenue coming from foreign sales.[30] Natalya worked to broker deals abroad and localize the software. It opened offices in the UK, Poland, Holland and China. It later expanded to Germany, France, the US and Japan.[32] By 2000, the company had 65 employees and sales in more than 40 countries.[30] Kaspersky opened new offices in South East Asia and the Middle East in 2008[24] and in South Africa in 2009.[34] It also expanded in India, the Middle East and Africa in 2010.[24]
In 2011, General Atlantic bought a 20 percent share of Kaspersky Lab for $200 million, with the expectation of helping the company go public. A few months later, the decision was made to keep the firm private and Kaspersky re-purchased the shares from General Atlantic.[36][37][38] This was followed by numerous executive departures in 2011 and 2014 regarding disputes over going public and over Eugene Kaspersky's management style.
On January 1, 2012, Kaspersky Lab officially left the Business Software Alliance (BSA) over SOPA. The BSA had supported the controversial anti-piracy bill, but Kaspersky Lab did not support it stating, "we believe that such measures will be used contrary to the modern advances in technology and the needs of consumers," and to show their disapproval, announced their intent to leave on December 5, 2011.[39][40]
By 2013, the company had an unaudited $667 million in annual revenues.[41] In 2014, Kaspersky Lab signed a distribution deal with Ingram Micro, which significantly expanded its reseller program.[42]
In August 2015, two former Kaspersky employees alleged that the company introduced modified files into the VirusTotal antivirus database to trick software from Kaspersky competitors into triggering false positives in virus and malware scans. A possible motive is that Eugene Kaspersky allegedly was furious at competitors perceived to be "unfairly" free-riding on Kaspersky's malware discoveries via the open-source VirusTotal database. The company denied the allegations.[43][44][45] On his personal blog, Eugene Kaspersky compared the accusations to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.[46] Reuters followed up by publishing leaked emails allegedly from Kaspersky alluding to "falsies" and "rubbing out" foreign competitors; Kaspersky Lab stated the emails "may not be legitimate and were obtained from anonymous sources that have a hidden agenda".[47]
In 2016, Kaspersky executive Ruslan Stoyanov was arrested by Russian authorities on charges predating his work at Kaspersky.[48] In 2019, he was convicted of treason.[49][50]
In 2017, Kaspersky Lab launched the Global Transparency Initiative, which included several measures, including the opening of Transparency Centers to demonstrate the original code of products to partners and authorities.[51] In 2025, the Transparency Review and Accountability in Cyber Security (TRACS) 2025 study, conducted by the Tyrolean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with MCI and AV-Comparatives, covering 14 of the most widely used corporate cybersecurity solutions (Cisco, ESET, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Symantec, etc.), it was noted that only three participants — Cisco, Kaspersky, and Microsoft — applied the practice of transparency centers as a real element of openness policy in the company.[52]
In June 2023, Kaspersky Lab said many of its senior staff and managers were hit by an ongoing attack that it first suspected in early 2023 and has compromised thousands of iPhones. The oldest traces of infection date back to 2019.[53] The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) separately accused the US National Security Agency and company Apple of being behind the attack and infiltrating the phones of diplomats from China, Israel, NATO members, and Syria. Kaspersky Lab said it does not believe itself to be the main target and that it had not shared its own findings about the attack with Russian authorities until the FSB announcement.[54]
On 20 June 2024, after the US announced that it would prohibit Kaspersky from selling or distributing updates to its software to US customers and sanctioned 12 of its senior leaders, the company announced it would leave the US market.[18][55][56] On September 25, the company abruptly replaced its software on US users' computers with UltraAV software developed by US cybersecurity firm Pango, angering some users.[57][58]
