Kaspersky Lab has planned to open a new data center in Switzerland to address Western government concerns regarding Russia’s recent possible engagement in espionage. The allegations say that the nation takes advantage of the leading antivirus software company to spy on people.
The Kaspersky data center will be the company’s base to provide a response to the governments of the U.S., Britain, and Lithuania from 2017, acting upon halting usage of its products. Last year, the American government ordered civilian government agencies to remove Kaspersky software from their networks.
Kaspersky strong-voiced rejections of the accusations and even filed a lawsuit against the American ban. The allegations acted as a catalyst to set up the Swiss data center, a person directly familiar with the matter said.
They as well added that it was not the only reason. Speaking with anonymity, they said: “The world is changing. There is more balkanisation and protectionism.” Declining to provide details on the project, they clarified that it isn’t for any branding purpose but a reforming step on their R&D infrastructure.
To further deliver on the promises of our Global Transparency Initiative, we are finalizing plans for the opening of the company’s first transparency center this year, which will be located in Europe. We understand that during a time of geopolitical tension, mirrored by an increasingly complex cyber-threat landscape, people may have questions and we want to address them. – Kaspersky Lab’s statement
The company said in October 2017 that they are to go for opening ‘transparency centers’ in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Although no details are yet to be provided on this, the internal documents regarding the Swiss data center do point out that it would be the first Transparency Center of many more to come.
Works on the Kaspersky data center are to begin within weeks, and completion is targeted for early 2020. Founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky will publicly announce the plans in the coming months.
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