Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab (/kæˈspɜːrski/; Russian: Лаборатория Касперского, romanized: Laboratoriya Kasperskogo) is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider company, which is headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom until it closed in 2024. It was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, Natalya Kaspersky and Alexey De-Monderik. Kaspersky Lab develops and sells antivirus, endpoint security, SIEM, XDR, and other cybersecurity products and services. The Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) has led the discovery of sophisticated espionage platforms conducted by nations, such as Equation Group and the Stuxnet worm. Their research has uncovered large-scale and highly technical cyber espionage attempts. Kaspersky also publishes the annual Global IT Security Risks Survey.

Kaspersky expanded abroad from 2005 to 2010 and grew to $822 million in annual revenues by 2024. In 2010, Kaspersky Lab ranked fourth in the global ranking of antivirus vendors by revenue. It was the first Russian company to be included into the rating of the world's leading software companies, called the Software Top 100 (79th on the list, as of June 29, 2012). In 2016, Kaspersky's research hubs analyzed more than 350,000 malware samples per day. In 2016, the software had about 400 million users and was one the largest market-share of cybersecurity software vendors in Europe.

The US government has alleged that Kaspersky has engaged with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)—ties which the company has actively denied. In 2017, the Trump administration issued a ban of Kaspersky software on federal civilian and military computers. In response to these and other allegations, Kaspersky began to solicit independent reviews and verification of its source code, and relocated core infrastructure and customer data from Russia to Switzerland. Multiple countries have banned or restricted their government agencies from using Kaspersky products, including Lithuania, the Netherlands, and the United States.

As of 2025, Kaspersky has over 30 offices in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and customers in over 200 countries.

The first version of Kaspersky Lab's antivirus software was developed by Eugene Kaspersky in 1989 in response to the Cascade Virus. Early versions had just 40 virus definitions and were mostly distributed to friends and family members. Kaspersky continued developing the software at KAMI, resulting in the AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP) product released in 1992. It was popularized in 1994 after a competitive analysis by Hamburg University gave his software first place.

In 1997, Eugene Kaspersky, his wife Natalya Kaspersky, and Alexey De-Monderik left KAMI to form Kaspersky Lab, and to continue developing the antivirus product, then called AVP. The product was renamed Kaspersky Anti-Virus after an American company registered the AVP trademark in the US.

In 1998, a Taiwanese student released a virus called CIH. During the first three weeks of the outbreak, Kaspersky Lab's AVP was the only software at the time able to remove it. This increased demand and led to deals with antivirus companies in Japan, Finland and Germany to integrate AVP into their software.

According to WIRED, Kaspersky's software was "advanced for the time". For example, it was the first software to monitor viruses in an isolated quarantine. The company's revenue grew 280 percent from 1998 to 2000, with about 60 percent of its revenue coming from foreign sales. Natalya worked to broker deals abroad and localize the software. It opened offices in the UK, Poland, Holland and China. It later expanded to Germany, France, the US and Japan. By 2000, the company had 65 employees and sales in more than 40 countries. Kaspersky opened new offices in South East Asia and the Middle East in 2008 and in South Africa in 2009. It also expanded in India, the Middle East and Africa in 2010. In 2009, retail sales of Kaspersky Lab's antivirus products reached almost 4.5 million copies per year.