For two decades the tech world has known that Russian software giant Kaspersky was questionable at best, now the Labor Federal Government has finally woken up to the security threat that Russian Companies software poses.

Years ago, we reported we reported that Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder of Kaspersky (Seen below) told some of his lieutenants in 2009 that they should attack rival antivirus software maker AVG Technologies by “rubbing them out in the outhouse”. I once fronted him face to face over the way that his so called secure software was capturing and distributing confidential data from systems running his software.

Home Affairs Department secretary Stephanie Foster revealed at a Senate estimate hearing that Kaspersky had been banned, he failed to explain why it had taken so long considering the bans in place on Chinese security cameras.
It appears that only now has government departments and agencies been told to remove the company’s products by April 1, according to a notice published under Foster’s name by the department.

The note reads Kaspersky “poses an unacceptable security risk to Australian Government, networks and data, arising from threats of foreign interference, espionage and sabotage”, the notice said.

Foster’s notice added that the ban is intended to send a “strong policy signal to critical infrastructure and other Australian governments regarding the unacceptable security risk associated with the use of Kaspersky Lab” products.Kaspersky

The ban on Kaspersky comes just weeks after the Australian government banned Chinese artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek from government-issued computers and phones.

The US banned Kaspersky products from American government devices last year, prompting the company’s withdrawal from that market. The company has denied claims it has ties to Russian security services.

More than 400 million users have the questionable software on their PC’s.