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Kaspersky Employees Say They Were Asked To Resign Because They Wanted To Leave Russia (vice.com) 88

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has indirectly hit the country's oligarchs through sanctions, as well as the country's top tech company Yandex, which saw its stock nosedive and whose deputy chief executive officer stepped down because of sanctions imposed by the European Union. But the war is also affecting employees of another Russian tech giant, and one of the most well known and respected antivirus makers: Kaspersky. From a report: In the wake of the invasion, at least two employees told Motherboard they asked to be relocated outside of Russia. A third source who still works at the company also told Motherboard that some Kaspersky employees were asked to resign after those employees asked to live and work somewhere else. Instead of accommodating them, the company asked them to resign, as the company's founder Eugene Kaspersky emphasized the importance of standing next to him during tough times, according to the two former employees, who did end up resigning. Kaspersky has several employees in different countries, working from one of the 35 offices in 31 countries that the company claims to have. In a regularly scheduled all hands meeting a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine, employees asked whether the company would consider relocation requests.
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Kaspersky Employees Say They Were Asked To Resign Because They Wanted To Leave Russia More

Kaspersky Employees Say They Were Asked To Resign Because They Wanted To Leave Russia

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  • Ok....... so what? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 )

    I mean, as an American, I know the media/press expects me to complain about how evil everything is that Russia does. But this seems pretty rational? If America was at war with some enemy nation and I ran a business here with employees asking to relocate in the enemy territory, I'd probably tell them it's time to resign too.

    I'd expect a Russian headquartered company (especially one that probably has ties to the government) to support the idea of people sticking together there during times of war.

    • whatever made you think they wanted to relocate to Ukraine? Or are you saying Russia is at war with every country on earth?

      If an employee came to me to move to another country and they were sufficiently valuable and could work remotely then I'd let them, knowing that losing them would be a large blow to the company.

      The fact that Kaspersky isn't doing this probably means they're being pressured by Russian officials to keep employees in the country. It's a symptom of massive brain drain Russia is faci

      • It already has hurt Russia, badly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

        I think it might be simpler than that. Once they leave, they won't be in the Russian banking system. And then Kaspersky can no longer pay them with its Russian-banked funds. Perhaps they looked at the books and said "we can't afford to let a bunch of people move from in-system to out-of-system because we will quickly run out of money to pay them".

    • If, as a company, you think like that, then you should expect all your customers in "enemy territory" to become former customers.

      And, in Russian terms, there is no war.

      • Sure.... nothing wrong with that either, that I can see? Kaspersky should absolutely assume they're going to lose a lot of business from people in any country that isn't on Russia's side.

    • Do what the US Military does, an Antarctic, Gitmo or North pole posting. I know Joe would have said sure - off to Siberia office for you. But seriously Moscow is a very expensive city, so somewhere else (at the same pay) could be done. Belarus, Pakistan , Tajikistan or Kazakhstan. Naturally they would have to have the language skills.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      I'd expect a Russian headquartered company (...) to support the idea of people sticking together

      or maybe, just maybe, the ceo of a company supports the idea of making sure he's surrounded by loyal employees, specially in times of hardship.

      re western propaganda ... yes indeed, it looks they're running out of steam and out of boutades to spew. no wonder, what a marathon!

    • No, the Kaspersky should move completely outside of Russia until Russia is gone from Ukraine. Kaspersky should in no way be seen as supporting the war and illegal attempt to take over another country. I'd expect any American company to do the same.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chthon ( 580889 )

      Our company works close together with a from origin Russian company. Upon the outbreak of the war, the boss of that Russian company paid all his people to relocate to Georgia, and he moved the business seat there too.

    • The article is interesting and slightly disturbing.

      There has always been a very slight bit of doubt floating around whether we should fully trust Kaspersky, software intended to find and neutralize malware, when it's coming from Russia, the main source of malware attacks.

      Now we hear that Kaspersky doesn't want workers to leave Russia (where they work on computers physically located in Russia, which are more easily surveilled and controlled), and work outside of Russia (where their computers are much more

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )

        I don't think I even know anybody still using Kaspersky AV software, to be honest?

        I worked at one place where we used it, maybe 15 years ago. But I think they dumped it too, since then. Most places find they get by ok with Windows Defender, vs paying money for AV subscriptions for third party products.

        Russia isn't directly at war with America right now, but we're involved in a costly proxy war to stop their expansionism.

    • Why do you have to complain? This is news of interest and you are free to be indifferent to it. Are we so conditioned now to expect every story to be an outrage generator?

    • Even when the war is wrong? Even in the US we allow protesters during war, whereas Russia will put you in jail for this. The workers were probably really asking if they leadership of that company is in cahoots with the modern Hitler or not. What happens when Putin demands that this company work to undermine Ukraine? Better to get out first before your soul gets corrupted. Stop being an apologist for a madman.

    • I mean, as an American, I know the media/press expects me to complain about how evil everything is that Russia does. But this seems pretty rational?

      If America was at war with some enemy nation and I ran a business here with employees asking to relocate in the enemy territory, I'd probably tell them it's time to resign too.

      Personally if I ran a business where the majority of my customers were in the rest of the world and the rest of the world became the enemy to my country I would join my employees and relocate.

      This is not only a rational business decision after all who is going to continue to do business with (let alone trust) Russia? It's suicidal not to leave.

      Likely a good moral decision as well. When one finds themselves in a place where the rest of the world is your "enemy" it's a pretty safe bet the problem is your co

    • There were plenty of people and businesses in the US that didn't align with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, Russians seem to understand that something bad is coming. For instance, Russian Jews are leaving in huge numbers, seemingly expecting political tumult and violence in the near future on Russian territory. It seems people might have a good reason to want to leave Russia for their personal safety. Kaspersky isn't just asking employees to "stand with us" or "stand with Russia", but to do so at ri

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chefren ( 17219 )
      Outside of Russia = enemy territory? I didn't realize it was that bad.

  • Anyone surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @10:49AM (#62814337)
    Not sure why this would surprise anyone. After all, there is a ancient Russian proverb: "No dough for disloyal hoes"

  • Kaspersky, Respected? (Score:3)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @11:05AM (#62814375) Homepage
    Um, no. Certainly not here in the states. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    • Around 2010-2015 I would say they were well-respected. It's getting more difficult to remember now but 10 or 15 years ago relations with Russia and China were pretty good. China's growth probably put them us an unavoidable path to more friction, but Russia just seems like they shot themselves in the foot. They were slowly coming up out of this pit of bad governance, but then slid back in. Kapersky is the perfect example of an enterprise that has been irreparably damaged by Russia's turn.

      • Russia just seems like they shot themselves in the foot. They were slowly coming up out of this pit of bad governance, but then slid back in.

        Perfect became the enemy of good, and that's how they got Putin. They discarded their relatively good leaders because they weren't good enough. Bummer.

        Kapersky is the perfect example of an enterprise that has been irreparably damaged by Russia's turn.

        I don't get who's been using AVP anyway. It has been a turd sandwich ever since about the time Windows XP came out. I used to use it on Win2k because it was the most effective and fastest AV around, but then the performance impact skyrocketed while it actually lost ground in effectiveness, and there was no longer any good reason to use it.

    • Seriously. I would cheerfully trust the reanimated-with-dark-magic corpse of John McAfee with my data before I'd so much as touch the steaming turd that is Kaspersky with a cattle prod duct taped to the end of a 10-foot pole while wearing a full biohazard bunny suit.

  • no explanation needed (Score:3)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @12:11PM (#62814571) Journal
    People asking to work remotely turned down. If you RTFA they could move to a different country having an office if there was a vacancy there....
  • Remember in 2017 when Kaspersky was used to hack the NSA?

  • Silly bias (Score:3)

    by mescobal ( 1516701 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @12:47PM (#62814661) Homepage
    Russian = oligarchs, US = billonaires. Why this silly bias in articles written to (presumably) intelligent public?
    • we like to pretend that our billionaires aren't actually the people in control.

    • Russian = oligarchs, US = billonaires. Why this silly bias in articles written to (presumably) intelligent public?

      Because there is an important difference in the degree of influence.

      In the West the ultra-rich are certainly politically influential, but the influence is a much softer.

      A Western billionaire can get on the new talks shows to promote their view, oligarchs will own the news show and give fairly direct instructions.

      Billionaires can pick up the phone and arrange a meeting with fairly senior politicians. Oligarchs have fairly senior politicians working for them.

      Billionaires have a lot of influence on how laws an

    • Oligarch is specifically the term Russians use, and it specifically refers to wealth derived from post-Soviet privatization.

  • Their reputation has been sketchy for years now, and after the invasion of Ukraine most companies won't touch anything from them even with a ten-foot pole.

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