Kaspersky Labs: Source code goes to America…. Over the past two weeks, there has been a worrying trend of various governments requiring private software development companies to hand over the source code of their applications for review if they want to continue selling their products.
Until now, we only knew about Russia, but it seems that the US government is giving the same ultimatum to foreign software development companies. 
On Sunday, the CEO of security company Kaspersky Labs, Eugene Kaspersky, told the Associated Press that he is willing to make the source code of his company's applications available to the U.S. government.
"Anything I can do to prove that we are not behaving maliciously, I will do," Kaspersky said, insisting that he is open to testifying before Congress.
The company's decision to make its source code available comes after a proposal was submitted to the Senate that essentially "prohibits the Department of Defense from using software platforms developed by Kaspersky Lab.".
Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, told ABC News that "there is a consensus in Congress that we cannot trust Kaspersky Lab to protect our critical infrastructure.".
The fears follow long-standing FBI suspicions that Kaspersky Labs is too close to the Russian government. The company is based in Russia but has worked with both Moscow and the FBI in the past, often acting as a go-between to help the two governments work together.
"As a private company, Kaspersky Lab has no ties to any government and the company has never assisted and will not assist any government in the world for cyberespionage," reads an official statement from Kaspersky Labs.
The response from Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov came as a warning that any “unilateral political sanctions” would bring retaliation from Russia. He stressed that his government uses “a huge proportion of American software and hardware solutions in the IT sector, even in very sensitive areas.”.
The specific source code proposal comes at a time when Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the Russian government, which the Americans believe was involved in the hacking of the 2016 election.
Russia, on the other hand, is doing exactly the same thing to American private companies. Major technology companies such as Cisco, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, McAfee, and SAP have agreed to give the Russian government access to the source code of their security products such as firewalls, antivirus applications, and encryption software.
Security company Symantec officially refused to cooperate with Russian demands last week.
"There is a risk to the integrity of our products that we are not prepared to accept," a Symantec spokesperson said.
