Kaspersky Lab is a computer security company, co-founded by Natalia Kaspersky and Eugene Kaspersky in 1997, offering antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, and anti-intrusion products. Kaspersky Lab is a privately held company headquartered in Moscow, Russia with regional offices in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Japan, China, Korea and the USA.

In 2005, Red Herring magazine listed Kaspersky among "Red Herring 100 Europe", a selection of the 100 private companies in Europe and Israel that play a leading role in innovation and technology.

According to AV-Comparatives, Kaspersky Anti-Virus (formerly known as AntiViral Toolkit Pro) rates highly amongst virus scanners in terms of detection rates. In 2007 Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security were awarded "A-list" and "Labs winner" status by UK PC journal PcPro after testing against most major competitors, and outshining them all with it's malware detection capabilities.

In addition, Kaspersky has passed all Virus Bulletin comparative tests since August 2003. According to PC World magazine, Kaspersky antivirus software provides the fastest updates for new virus and security threats in the industry.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus engine also powers products or solutions by other security vendors, such as Check Point, Bluecoat, Juniper Networks, Sybari (now acquired by Microsoft), Netintelligence, GFI Software, F-Secure, Borderware, FrontBridge, G-Data, Netasq, and others. Altogether, more than 120 companies are licensing technology from Kaspersky, which makes it one of the most widely used antivirus engines in the industry.

Media claims

In early 2005, Kaspersky Labs revealed that it was contacted by "a user asking how to disinfect the onboard computers of several Lexus cars... The user said that the infection occurred via a mobile phone".

On 5 April 2007, Kaspersky Labs claimed to have found a virus that infects Apple's popular iPod music player. The press release stated: "It should be stressed that in order for the virus to function, Linux has to be installed on the iPod." Kaspersky Internet Security 7 includes a built in option called "Roll-back" technology. When an infection is detected, it will give you the option to "Roll-back", which will take your computer back right before the infection was detected, so it is as if your computer was never infected. Having this option makes it able to get rid of threats other antivirus software can't. An example being Smitfraud-C., which was an epidemic for most companies.

Product

See also: Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7

The present line of Kaspersky products consists of Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) 7 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus (KAV) 7, released on August 1, 2007. Alpha releases of KAV 8 and KIS 8 are also currently available for testing.

Kaspersky products are widely used in Eastern Europe and Asia, but have not been strongly marketed in North America and Western Europe. However, US-based magazine PC World recently awarded Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 the Editor's Choice in its 2007 anti-virus comparative (partnered with AV-Test.org), a move which will likely result in more widespread use in the Western Hemisphere. For example, it is now being marketed by Sam's Club in tandem with the Symantec Norton product line, which has been more popular in the USA.

The latest line of Kaspersky products is certified for Windows Vista.

Litigation

In May 2007, Adware distributor Zango filed a lawsuit against Kaspersky Lab, accusing it of trade libel for blocking the installation of Zango software. In August, the court ruled that the Communications Decency Act granted immunity to Kaspersky.