Documents link Russian cybersecurity firm to spy agency

[malaise]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/documents-link-russian-cybersecurity-firm-to-spy-agency/ar-BBDJzYY?li=AA5a8k&ocid=spartanntp
<snip>WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies have turned up the heat on Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based cybersecurity giant long suspected of ties to Russia’s spying apparatus.
man holding credit cards.

Now, official Kremlin documents reviewed by McClatchy could further inflame the debate about whether the company’s relationship with Russian intelligence is more than rumor.

The documents are certifications issued to the company by the Russian Security Service, the spy agency known as the FSB.

Unlike the stamped approvals the FSB routinely issues to companies seeking to operate in Russia, Kaspersky’s include an unusual feature: a military intelligence unit number matching that of an FSB program.

“That strikes me as much more persuasive public evidence,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former deputy secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. “It makes it far more likely that much of the rumor and uncertainty about Kaspersky are true.”

For years, suspicions that Kaspersky is connected to Russia’s spying network have dogged the company, a leading global seller of anti-virus programs. Founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky studied cryptography, programming and mathematics at an academy operated by the KGB, the FSB’s Soviet-era predecessor, and then worked for the Ministry of Defense.