Kaspersky customers in the US have discovered that their antivirus software has been replaced without warning by a new solution called UltraAV.
The US government recently passed a law banning the sale of Kaspersky security software and subsequent updates to installed software, prompting the company to exit the US market.
Customers reported on social media that the update was sent without the ability to accept or decline UltraAV, despite notification emails supposedly being sent at least a few weeks before the update.
Demonstration of the danger of Kaspersky
The United States has long maintained that Kaspersky software is at risk of being manipulated by the Russian government to hand over secrets and control of the computers on which it is installed, with an initial ban on the use of Kaspersky products within federal agencies, followed by a full ban on commercial sales beginning July 20, and finally a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ban on the use of Kaspersky software inside telecommunications equipment in early September 2024.
Around the same time as the FCC ban, Axios reported that Kaspersky had transferred its antivirus customers to the Pango Group, which owns UltraAV.
Kaspersky confirmed the transition in a post by Vadim M. on the company’s forum, stating: “Kaspersky has also partnered with UltraAV to make the transition to its product as smooth as possible, so on September 19, US customers of Kaspersky antivirus received a software update that eased the transition to UltraAV. This update ensured that users did not experience a gap in protection following Kaspersky’s exit from the market.”
Former National Security Agency cybersecurity director Rob Joyce commented on the transition at X (formerly Twitter), saying, “This is why handing root-level access to Kaspersky was a huge risk. Users were ‘migrated’ – the software was uninstalled and a totally different product was installed automatically. They had full control of their machine.” It’s worth noting that some antivirus and anti-cheat software products commonly use root-level access to scan for harmful files or software used to cheat in games.
TechRadar Pro UltraAV was contacted for more context on the nature of the transition, but the company did not immediately respond. Any further updates will be posted here.
Through TechnologyCrunch
