Eugene Kaspersky said his company’s widely used antivirus software has copied files that did not threaten the personal computers of those customers, a sharp departure from industry practice that could increase suspicions that the Moscow-based firm aids Russian spies. Previously, Kaspersky’s company said its software had copied a file containing U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) hacking tools from the home computer of an agency worker in 2014.



“We did nothing wrong,” Kaspersky said in the interview. He said the files containing the NSA hacking tools were taken because they were part of a larger file that included suspicious software. Such actions occur only in “very, very, very rare cases,” he added. A spokesman at Kaspersky’s firm, Kaspersky Lab, told Reuters the company would never take regular computer files that contained nothing suspicious. The firm has for years faced suspicions that it has links with Russian intelligence and state-sponsored hackers.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Kaspersky Acknowledges Taking Inactive Files in Pursuit of Hackers