Kaspersky founder hits back at spying accusations

The founder of Russian IT security firm Kaspersky has defended his company against accusations of espionage in the US, saying that it is the victim of a "witch hunt."

Eugene Kaspersky wrote on his blog that he is personally responsible for keeping the anti-virus specialist's programmes and updates free from any secret surveillance functions.

"And I declare personally that all accusations of spying on American users are, at best, baseless paranoia," he wrote in the text, which was published in Russian on Wednesday.

Over the past few weeks, US media has reported that the Russian Secret Service has profited from Kaspersky software being installed on American computers, which has helped them to find and steal secret attack tools belonging to the National Security Agency (NSA).

One NSA employee apparently installed Kaspersky software on their private computer in contravention of NSA rules, the reports said.

Most reports left it open to question whether or not Kaspersky had cooperated willingly with the Russian Secret Service or whether their software had been abused without their knowledge.

Only the Wall Street Journal, citing sources from the American authorities, reported that Kaspersky software searched specifically for terms such as "top secret" and for names of secret US programmes.

Eugene Kaspersky stressed that there is open access to his company's products and databases and that these would now be subject to an internal investigation - and that he would be happy to have external experts supervise the process.

"I'm absolutely convinced that nothing surprising will be discovered," he said.