"President Trump not only continued the national emergency for cybersecurity, but he did so himself and sanctioned Russians involved in the hacks of last year," Bossert told reporters. "I think he continued that for another year. We will probably continue it for the year after that."
According to Bossert, the US banned the federal government from using anti-virus software made by Kaspersky Lab because the firm's ability to communicate directly with the Russian government constituted an "unacceptable" risk.
"This year, we acted to remove Kaspersky from all of our federal networks. We did so because having a company that can report back information to the Russian government constituted a risk unacceptable to our federal networks," Bossert said.
Bossert added that private companies and foreign governments also followed suit after the US decision, taking the same action.
Russia has been accused of meddling in the US internal affairs, including via hacking, since the 2016 US presidential election, allegations the Kremlin has repeatedly denied as "groundless." Tensions have further escalated when the US Department of Homeland Security ordered state agencies and departments to stop using Russia's Kaspersky Lab products over their potential threat to the internal cybersecurity.
READ MORE: Kaspersky Lab to Appeal US Decision to Ban Its Products on Gov't Networks — CEO
The US defense budget for the fiscal year 2018, signed by Donald Trump on December 12, prohibits the use of Kaspersky Lab's software products by US government agencies.
Kaspersky Lab's CEO Eugene Kaspersky has repeatedly refuted all the cyber-espionage allegations, calling them arrant nonsense, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described actions of the US authorities as "discriminatory," adding that the situations cast "a shadow on the image of the United States as a reliable partner."
