Clients of Kaspersky antivirus in america came upon in the previous couple of days that their cybersecurity software program was mechanically changed with a brand new one referred to as UltraAV, in accordance with a number of prospects who posted on social media. And a few of the prospects mentioned that they had no thought this was going to occur.
“Woke as much as Kasperky [sic] fully gone from my system with Extremely AV and Extremely VPN freshly put in (not by me, simply mechanically whereas I slept),” a consumer on Reddit wrote. Others in the identical Reddit thread, in addition to in different threads, reported having the identical expertise.
A reseller, who till lately offered Kaspersky merchandise previous to the current gross sales ban, advised TechCrunch that he was left “aggravated” by the transfer to mechanically take away Kaspersky software program and substitute it with a wholly totally different antivirus. A former senior U.S. authorities cybersecurity official mentioned that this was an instance of the “large danger” posed by the entry granted by Kaspersky software program.
It’s value noting that, alternatively, different prospects did report receiving an e mail from Kaspersky in regards to the transition to UltraAV.
The transition to UltraAV comes months after the U.S. authorities took the unprecedented choice to ban all gross sales of Kaspersky software program throughout america. In June, the Commerce Division introduced that gross sales of the antivirus software program can be banned beginning July 20. After that, Kaspersky was allowed to offer restricted safety updates to prospects till September 29.
In early September, Axios reported that Kaspersky had reached a deal to dump its prospects to American cybersecurity agency Pango, which owns UltraAV, a comparatively new antivirus software program.
UltraAV has a web page on its website saying that Kaspersky prospects utilizing Home windows would get the brand new antivirus with their current subscription and that “no motion is required.” It’s unclear when the web page was revealed. The earliest model of the web page saved on the Web Archive dates again to September 6.
Kaspersky additionally confirmed the transition to UltraAV.
“Kaspersky has moreover partnered with UltraAV to make the transition to their product as seamless as attainable, which is why on 9/19, U.S. Kaspersky antivirus prospects obtained a software program replace facilitating the transition to UltraAV. This replace ensured that customers wouldn’t expertise a spot in safety upon Kaspersky’s exit from the market,” a Kaspersky worker solely named Vadim M. wrote in an official firm discussion board on Saturday.
Kaspersky didn’t reply to a request for remark. Pango spokesperson Sydney Harwod advised TechCrunch that “all Kaspersky prospects had been notified of the transition to UltraAV” in early September.
Avi Fleischer, a buyer of Kaspersky, advised TechCrunch that he additionally was shocked by the transition.
“I’m aggravated at Kaspersky,” mentioned Fleischer, who can also be the founding father of Technical Difficulties, an organization that was an official Kaspersky reseller. “Mainly, on my computer systems, Kaspersky pushed an uninstall of the Kaspersky merchandise and pushed an automated set up of UltraAV & UltraVPN onto my computer systems. They need to’ve given me the choice to just accept UltraAV or not.”
“They need to NEVER push software program onto somebody’s pc with out express permission,” mentioned Fleischer. “Personally, I eliminated the UltraAV & UltraVPN instantly.”
Rob Joyce, the previous director of cybersecurity on the Nationwide Safety Company, mentioned in a submit on X: “Customers had been ‘migrated’ — software program uninstalled and a very totally different product was put in automagically,” including that Kaspersky “had complete management of your machine.”