A CEGEP has chosen to renew its use of a controversial Russian software, even if the United States now considers the antivirus a “threat to national security”.
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The QMI Agency has learned that the Cégep de Jonquière concluded a contract on April 4 for the one-year renewal of Kaspersky’s antivirus solutions.
“What is planned is to renew the license with Kaspersky for only one year to allow us to do the analysis work,” explained Sabrina Potvin, spokesperson for the CEGEP.
Threatens
The conclusion of this contract comes 10 days after the United States Department of Homeland Security placed Kaspersky Lab’s name on a short list of telecommunications companies posing a threat to national security. Already, in 2017, the United States had banned the use of the software in its federal agencies.
Aware of the alleged threats, the CEGEP claims, however, that it has no choice but to still trust the Russian multinational. At least, for the moment, because changing antivirus “involves planning” which “does not happen overnight”.
“I won’t hide from you that the information that has circulated and the current global context have accelerated our thinking process,” added Ms. Potvin. However, it was not possible to withdraw Kaspersky immediately, because “we would be without protection, which we obviously cannot do”.
It is also judged that keeping the antivirus is “not particularly” risky, in particular because “there are currently no confirmed security flaws”. Moreover, it is not certain that the cégep will make a final cross on Kaspersky following its “reflection”.
Situation closely monitored
Our Bureau of Investigation revealed in mid-March that several Quebec organizations were using Kaspersky, including Elections Quebec. Following our questions, however, the latter had confirmed its intention to quickly get rid of the controversial antivirus software.
For its part, the Quebec Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital said to monitor the situation closely without advising Kaspersky against ministries and organizations.
Kaspersky was co-founded in 1997 by Russian businessman Eugene Kaspersky. The company describes the suspicions against it as “political” and claims to have no connection with the Russian government.