{"id":12217,"date":"2018-11-13T05:00:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/trust-transparency\/12217\/"},"modified":"2022-02-24T14:49:48","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T10:49:48","slug":"trust-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/trust-transparency\/12217\/","title":{"rendered":"Folks can think for themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Besides a market for its goods or services, a business also needs resources. There are financial resources: money; human resources: employees; intellectual resources: business ideas, and the ability to bring them to life. For some businesses, sometimes even for whole industries, another resource is needed: trust<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you decide to buy\u2026 a vacuum cleaner. Is trust required of the manufacturer? Not really. You simply buy what seems like the right vacuum cleaner for you, based on a few things like its technical characteristics, how it looks, its quality, and its price. Trust doesn\u2019t really come into it.<\/p>\n

However, in some industries, for example finance or medicine, trust plays a crucial role. If someone doesn\u2019t trust a certain financial advisor or pharmaceutical brand, he\/she is hardly going to become their client\/buy their products \u2013 and perhaps never will. Until, that is, the financial advisor\/pharma company somehow proves that they are actually worthy of trust.<\/p>\n

Well, our business \u2013 cybersecurity<\/em> \u2013 not only requires trust, it depends on it. Without it, there can be no cybersecurity. And some folks \u2013 for now, let\u2019s just call them\u2026 detractors \u2013 they know this perfectly well and try to destroy people\u2019s trust in cybersecurity in all manner of ways; and for all manner of reasons.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think there might be something wrong with our products if there are folks trying to undermine trust in them. However, as to the quality of our products, I am perfectly untroubled \u2013 the results of independent tests<\/a> show why. It\u2019s something else that\u2019s changed in recent years: geopolitical turbulence<\/em>. And we\u2019ve been caught right in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

A propaganda machine rose up and directed its dark arts in our direction. A growing number of people have read or heard of unsubstantiated allegations<\/a> about us, originating in part from media reports that cite (unverifiable) \u2018anonymous sources\u2019. Whether such stories are influenced by the political agenda or a commercial need to drive sales is unclear, but false accusations shouldn\u2019t be acceptable (just as any other unfairness<\/a> shouldn\u2019t be.) So we challenge and disprove every claim made against us, one by one. And I choose this verb carefully there: disprove<\/em> (quick reminder: they have never proved anything; but, then, they wouldn\u2019t have to: it cannot exist as no wrongdoing was ever done in the first place.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, after almost a year since the last wave of allegations, I decided to conduct a sort-of audit of my own. To try and see how the world views us now, and to get an idea as to whether people exposed to such stories have been influenced by them. And to what extent our presentation of the facts has allowed them to make up their own minds on the matter.<\/p>\n

And guess what, we found that if people take into account only the facts\u2026 well \u2013 I have good news: the allegations didn\u2019t wash! Ok, I can hear you: \u2018show us the evidence!\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

Really simple, but enormously useful: on Gartner Peer Insights<\/a>, the opinions of corporate customers are collected, with Gartner\u2019s team vetting the process to make sure there\u2019s no vendor bias, no hidden agendas, no trolling. Basically, you get transparency and authenticity straight from end-users that matter.<\/p>\n

Last year, thanks to the feedback from corporate customers, we were named the Plantinum winner for the 2017 Gartner Peer Insights Customer Choice for Endpoint Protection Platforms<\/a>! This year\u2019s results aren\u2019t all in yet, but you can see for yourself<\/a> the number of customers that wanted to tell Gartner about their experience of us and give their overall ratings, and leave positive reviews. Crucially, you can see it\u2019s not a \u2018review factory\u2019 at work: they\u2019re confirmed companies of different sizes, profiles, geography and caliber.<\/p>\n

And talking of geography \u2013 turns out that in different regions of the world attitudes to trust can differ.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, Germany. Here, the question of trust in companies is taken very seriously. Therefore, the magazine WirtschaftsWoche<\/a> regularly publishes its ongoing research into levels of trust in companies after polling more than 300,000 people. In the \u2018software\u2019 category (note \u2013 not antivirus or cybersecurity), we are in fourth place<\/a>, and the overall level of trust in Kaspersky Lab is high \u2013 higher than for most direct competitors, regardless of their country of origin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then we see what happens when governments use facts to decide whether to trust a company or not. Example: last week the Belgian Centre for Cyber Security<\/a> researched the facts regarding KL and found they didn\u2019t support the allegations against us. After which the prime minister of Belgium announced<\/a> that there is no objective technical data \u2013 not even any independent research \u2013 that indicates our products could pose a threat. To that I would personally add that, theoretically, they could<\/em> pose a threat, but no more than any other cybersecurity product from any other company from any other country. Because theoretically any product has theoretical vulnerabilities. Taking into consideration our technology transparency efforts<\/a> I\u2019d say that our products pose less threat that any other products.<\/p>\n

\n

A voice of reason: Prime Minister of Belgium @charlesmichel<\/a> says \u2018No\u2019 for politically motivated software restrictions against @Kaspersky<\/a>. <\/p>\n

No facts of any wrongdoing. Instead \u2013 clear commitment to cooperate & industry-leading practices for transparency.
https:\/\/t.co\/oCzFNf31sK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) October 31, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n