Russia’s Kaspersky starts processing files in Switzerland in bid to regain trust

Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday was set to start to process malicious and suspicious files of European users of its products in data centers in Zurich, in a bid by the Russian cybersecurity firm to increase trust in its products and processes.

The move of its data processing systems is part of a major infrastructure move that is aimed to “increase the resilience of the company’s IT infrastructure to risks of data breaches and supply-chain attacks, and to further prove the trustworthiness of its products, services and internal processes,” the firm said in a statement Tuesday.

The relocation of other types of data processed by Kaspersky Lab products, consisting of several kinds of anonymized threat and usage statistics, is planned to take place at a later stage, as part of a Global Transparency Initiative announced by the company in October 2017.

The company also said on Tuesday that it has opened Kaspersky Lab’s first Transparency Center in Zurich, enabling authorized partners to access reviews of the company’s code, software updates and threat detection rules, along with other activities. Through the Transparency Center, Kaspersky Lab will provide governments and partners with information on its products and their security, including essential and important technical documentation, for external evaluation in a secure environment, the statement said.

These two developments will be followed by the relocation of data processing for other regions and, in phase two, the move to Zurich of software assembly, the statement added.

The Russian firm said it May that it planned to relocate its key activities to Switzerland, in an attempt to regain the trust of its consumers. Switzerland is among the world’s top locations in terms of the number of secure internet servers available, and it has an international reputation as an innovative center for data processing and high quality IT infrastructure, the statement said.

The security software firm has been under scrutiny in an escalating conflict in cyberspace between the United States and Russia regarding its alleged ties to Russian intelligence. Last year the US Department of Homeland Security banned federal agencies from using Kaspersky software on concerns that its software, used by companies and governments globally, might provide a secret backdoor into users’ computers for Russian intelligence officials. The Russian-based company has been accused of being a vehicle for hackers to steal security secrets from the US National Security Agency.

Kaspersky has said it was a pawn in a game between the US and Russia. Its anti-virus software is used by over 400 million people globally, including government agencies and some 270,000 corporate clients.

“Through the new Transparency Center, also in Switzerland, trusted partners and governments will be able to see external reviews of our products and make up their own minds,” said Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO and founder of Kaspersky Lab, in the statement. “We believe that steps such as these are just the beginning — for the company and for the security industry as a whole. The need to prove trustworthiness will soon become an industry standard.”