Exclusive: Kaspersky offloads U.S. antivirus customers to Pango Group
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Cybersecurity company Pango is acquiring all of Kaspersky Lab's U.S. antivirus customers following the Commerce Department's ban on sales of the Russian antivirus software.
Why it matters: Without the deal, existing Kaspersky U.S. customers would have stopped receiving software updates to the antivirus tool later this month.
Zoom in: Pango is acquiring roughly 1 million new users through the deal, Neill Feather, president and chief operating officer at Pango, told Axios.
- Pango owns and offers a portfolio of cybersecurity products, including VPNs, antivirus software and identity theft protection tools.
- Kaspersky customers will transition to Pango Group's antivirus brand, Ultra AV, and were informed of the transition Thursday.
- Feather declined to disclose the deal's financial terms. Kaspersky did not respond to a request for comment.
What they're saying: "The good news is that there's really no action required by customers," Feather said.
- "Those things that they do need to be aware of and need to know, we'll lay out for them in a series of email communications and then we also have our customer support team ramped up and ready to assist."
Catch up quick: The Commerce Department banned all new sales of Kaspersky Lab's antivirus software in the United States starting July 20.
- Current customers were still legally allowed to use the products, but updates would have stopped after Sept. 29.
- As a result of the ban, Kaspersky Lab started winding down its U.S. operations in July and laid off U.S.-based employees.
The intrigue: Once the transition takes place, former Kaspersky U.S. customers will be completely offloaded from the Russian company's IP.
- The U.S. government had worried for years that the Kremlin could pressure Kaspersky into allowing government spies to tap U.S. customers' devices.
The big picture: Pango also became a standalone company this week after Aura, a company known for online safety tools for families and individuals, spun the unit out.
- "It was operating sort of as two separate companies within a holding company, we just went through the actual act of separating it out," Hari Ravichandran, founder and CEO of Aura, told Axios.
Go deeper: Why it took the U.S. nearly 10 years to ban a Russian cyber vendor
