Eugene Kaspersky tells reporters Russian intelligence services have never asked his Kaspersky Lab to spy on Western targets and that he would leave Russia if asked to do so. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
ROUGH CUT. NO REPORTER NARRATION. Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab has never been asked by Russian intelligence services to spy on targets in the West, the company's founder and the chief executive said on Tuesday (November 29). "Never, never," CEO Eugene Kaspersky told reporters at a media briefing at the company's office in London, when asked if Russian intelligence had ever asked him to help them spy on the West. Kaspersky, who once served as an engineer for Soviet military intelligence before founding his company in the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, said he would move the company outside of Russia if he faced such a demand to spy. Fears about Kaspersky's ties to Russian intelligence, and the capacity of its anti-virus software to sniff out and remove files, prompted an escalating series of warnings and actions from U.S. authorities over the past year.