Cyber warfare

Dutch Government plans to phase out the use of Kaspersky solutions

Dutch Government plans to phase out the use of Kaspersky solutions while the security firm confirmed that its code infrastructure is going to move to Switzerland.

The antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab made the headlines again, the company confirmed that its code infrastructure is going to move to Switzerland. The news arrives just after the comment from the Netherlands government of the risks associated with the usage of Kaspersky Lab software.

Dutch government announced on Monday it plans to phase out the use of anti-virus software developed by Kaspersky Labs “as a precautionary measure” and recommending companies involved in the protection of critical infrastructure to do the same.

Dutch Government fear the aggressive Russian cyber strategy cyber that targets among others the country interests.

“In a letter to parliament, Justice Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus said the decision was made because the Russian government had an “offensive cyber programme that targets among others the Netherlands and Dutch interests”.” reported The New York Times.

“He also said Moscow-based Kaspersky was subject to Russian laws that could oblige it to comply with Russian state interests.”

In response to the accusations from several governments, Kaspersky is moving a number of its core activities from Russia to Switzerland as part of its “Global Transparency Initiative.” It has been estimated that the overall costs of the transfer are $12m.

“The (Dutch) cabinet has carried out an independent review and analysis and made a careful decision on that basis,” Grapperhaus said. “Although there are no concrete cases of misuse known in the Netherlands, it cannot be excluded.”

Grapperhaus explained the Dutch government would consider revising the decision “if circumstances justify” doing so.

The U.S. DHS ban on the use of Kaspersky software by the U.S. Federal government in 2017, while Kaspersky continues to deny any cooperation with Russian intelligence,

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre for agencies and organizations also suggests avoiding the usage of Kaspersky solutions for the protection of systems that manage classified information.

In December, Lithuania announced it will ban the products of the cybersecurity giant Kaspersky from computers in critical infrastructure.

In April, Twitter banned Kaspersky from advertising on its platform citing DHS ban for its alleged ties with Russian intelligence agencies.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Kaspersky, Dutch Government)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Palo Alto Networks fixed multiple privilege escalation flaws

Palo Alto Networks addressed multiple vulnerabilities and included the latest Chrome patches in its solutions.…

18 hours ago

Unusual toolset used in recent Fog Ransomware attack

Fog ransomware operators used in a May 2025 attack unusual pentesting and monitoring tools, Symantec…

22 hours ago

Paraguay Suffered Data Breach: 7.4 Million Citizen Records Leaked on Dark Web

Resecurity researchers found 7.4 million records containing personally identifiable information (PII) of Paraguay citizens on…

1 day ago

Apple confirmed that Messages app flaw was actively exploited in the wild<gwmw style="display: none; background-color: transparent;"></gwmw>

Apple confirmed that a security flaw in its Messages app was actively exploited in the…

2 days ago

Trend Micro fixes critical bugs in Apex Central and TMEE PolicyServer

Trend Micro fixed multiple vulnerabilities that impact its Apex Central and Endpoint Encryption (TMEE) PolicyServer…

2 days ago