Customers of Kaspersky antivirus in the United States found out in the last few days that their cybersecurity software was automatically replaced with

Some Kaspersky customers receive surprise forced-update to new antivirus software

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2024-09-24 07:00:07

Customers of Kaspersky antivirus in the United States found out in the last few days that their cybersecurity software was automatically replaced with a new one called UltraAV, according to several customers who posted on social media. And some of the customers said they had no idea this was going to happen.

“Woke up to Kasperky [sic] completely gone from my system with Ultra AV and Ultra VPN freshly installed (not by me, just automatically while I slept),” a user on Reddit wrote. Others in the same Reddit thread, as well as in other threads, reported having the same experience.

A reseller, who until recently sold Kaspersky products prior to the recent sales ban, told TechCrunch that he was left “annoyed” by the move to automatically remove Kaspersky software and replace it with an entirely different antivirus. A former senior U.S. government cybersecurity official said that this was an example of the “huge risk” posed by the access granted by Kaspersky software.

It’s worth noting that, on the other hand, other customers did report receiving an email from Kaspersky about the transition to UltraAV.