Kaspersky Lab is suing the Department of Homeland Security for banning the company's software on US federal government computers.
In a legal complaint filed Monday, the Moscow-based security firm is demanding a US federal district court overturn the ban, which it calls "unlawful."
"DHS has harmed Kaspersky Lab's reputation and its commercial operations without any evidence of wrongdoing by the company," CEO Eugene Kaspersky said in a separate statement.
The ban refers to a DHS directive issued in September, which ordered federal agencies to begin removing the company's security products from their computers over Russian spying fears. In July, Kaspersky Lab reached out to DHS to address the concerns, and stressed that it had no ties to any government or cyberespionage campaigns. But the company was never given a fair hearing, according to the company's CEO.
"DHS did not provide Kaspersky Lab with a meaningful opportunity to be heard before the Directive's issuance, and therefore, Kaspersky Lab's due process rights were infringed," Eugene Kaspersky said in his statement.
The company makes relatively little revenue from US federal agencies, but the ban and ensuing fallout has marred its reputation across the world, he added.
The company is demanding the US court invalidate the DHS's software ban and declare that Kaspersky Lab products are safe for use in federal government systems.
DHS has not yet responded to the suit. However, the ban against Kaspersky Lab software appears to be here to stay. Last week, the Trump administration enshrined it into law with the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a section prohibiting federal government use of Kaspersky Lab products.
Although Kaspersky Lab has denied it works for the Kremlin, it did admit to inadvertently downloading the classified NSA files from a computer back in 2014, but only because they had been flagged as malware. Kaspersky Lab promptly deleted the files once it discovered their nature. The company claims it has nothing to hide, and is inviting security experts to review its product source code. But the spying concerns continue to dog the company.