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On June 21, 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 12 Kaspersky executives and senior leaders. The action blocked their relevant property under U.S. jurisdiction and generally barred U.S. persons from transactions involving them. It did not designate Kaspersky Lab or its founder, Eugene Kaspersky. A separate Commerce Department action—not the Treasury sanctions—restricted Kaspersky’s ability to provide covered software and cybersecurity services in the United States.
What happened, and when?
The actions came in two separate tracks. On June 20, 2024, the Commerce Department announced a final determination restricting Kaspersky-related companies from providing covered antivirus and cybersecurity products or services in the United States or to U.S. persons. On June 21, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated 12 executives under Executive Order 14024. The measures had different targets and legal effects: Commerce addressed the U.S. market for Kaspersky products and services; Treasury imposed financial sanctions on named individuals. Treasury’s announcement describes both actions.
Contemporary reporting said Commerce’s restrictions on new U.S. sales and provision of covered products and services were scheduled to take effect July 20, 2024, and that customers would no longer be permitted to receive updates or resales after September 29, 2024. Those dates concern Commerce’s restrictions, not OFAC’s designations. The Hacker News’ June 2024 report describes the transition dates; the available information here does not establish whether later amendments or policy changes altered them.
Who did Treasury sanction?
OFAC designated the following executives and senior leaders of AO Kaspersky Lab. Their listed responsibilities span operational, legal, technical, communications, human-resources, consumer, corporate-sales and regional leadership.
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| Name | Title or responsibility stated by Treasury |
|---|---|
| Andrei Gennadyevich Tikhonov | Chief Operating Officer and board member |
| Daniil Sergeyevich Borshchev | Deputy CEO and board member |
| Andrei Anatolyevich Efremov | Chief Business Development Officer and board member |
| Igor Gennadyevich Chekunov | Chief Legal Officer and board member |
| Andrey Petrovich Dukhvalov | Vice President and Director of Future Technologies |
| Andrei Anatolyevich Suvorov | Head of the Kaspersky Operating System Business Unit |
| Denis Vladimirovich Zenkin | Head of Corporate Communications |
| Marina Mikhaylovna Alekseeva | Chief Human Resources Officer |
| Mikhail Yuryevich Gerber | Executive Vice President of Consumer Business |
| Anton Mikhaylovich Ivanov | Chief Technology Officer |
| Kirill Aleksandrovich Astrakhan | Executive Vice President for Corporate Business |
| Anna Vladimirovna Kulashova | Managing Director for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States |
The names and roles are those in Treasury’s designation release.
What do OFAC sanctions mean in practice?
The designations were made under Executive Order 14024 for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy. For U.S. persons, the practical effect is a prohibition on dealing with the blocked individuals unless an exemption, general or specific license, or other authorization applies.
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- Property and interests in property belonging to a designated person that are in the United States, or in the possession or control of a U.S. person, must be blocked. Blocking generally means the property cannot be transferred, paid out or otherwise dealt with.
- U.S. persons generally may not conduct transactions involving the blocked individuals. The rules can also apply to entities owned directly or indirectly, individually or in aggregate, 50% or more by one or more blocked persons.
- Blocked property is generally reportable to OFAC. People or organizations facing a transaction involving a designated person should not assume it is permitted; they should consult applicable OFAC rules and qualified sanctions counsel.
A sanctions designation is not itself an arrest, criminal charge, conviction or court finding that a person committed espionage.
Who was not sanctioned—and what Commerce did separately
OFAC did not designate Kaspersky Lab itself, its parent companies or subsidiaries, or founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky in this June 21 action. That does not mean the company could continue serving the U.S. market without restriction: Commerce imposed a separate product-and-service prohibition and added three Kaspersky-related entities to its Entity List.
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| Question | Treasury / OFAC, June 21, 2024 | Commerce / BIS, separate action |
|---|---|---|
| Main target | 12 named executives and senior leaders | Kaspersky-related companies’ provision of covered products and services to the U.S. market |
| Legal mechanism | Designations under Executive Order 14024 | Final determination under Executive Order 13873 |
| Core effect | Blocks relevant property and generally restricts U.S.-person transactions involving designated people | Restricts covered antivirus and cybersecurity products and services in the United States or to U.S. persons |
| Company itself | Kaspersky Lab and its corporate family were not designated by OFAC in this action | Commerce restricted covered services and products and placed AO Kaspersky Lab, OOO Kaspersky Group and Kaspersky Labs Limited on the Entity List |
| Eugene Kaspersky | Not designated in the Treasury action | The Commerce restriction addressed company products and services, not a personal OFAC designation |
The Entity List and OFAC sanctions are distinct measures administered under different authorities. The software restriction came from Commerce; describing it as a ban imposed by Treasury conflates the two.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why did the U.S. government say it acted?
Treasury and Commerce framed their actions as national-security measures. Treasury said antivirus software can have broad access to files and elevated privileges on computers where it is installed, which the U.S. government said could be exploited by malicious cyber actors. Commerce concluded that transactions involving Kaspersky products and services presented an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security or the safety and security of U.S. persons.
Treasury also said Kaspersky-related entities had cooperated with Russian military and intelligence authorities in support of Russian government cyber-intelligence objectives. These are U.S. government findings and allegations, not a judicial determination of criminal conduct. Contemporary reporting said Kaspersky rejected the government’s rationale and denied inappropriate links to the Russian government; The Hacker News summarized the company’s response.
What should U.S. customers and organizations do?
Consumers
Do not infer that the absence of an OFAC designation against Kaspersky Lab means every purchase, renewal, update or support interaction is allowed. The relevant question is whether the activity involves a covered Kaspersky product or service under Commerce’s restrictions, and the answer can depend on the date, product and customer circumstances. Check the current applicable Commerce rules before making a decision about continued use or a transaction.
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- Inventory Kaspersky installations, licenses, renewal arrangements, update channels, cloud consoles and managed services.
- Map which U.S. subsidiaries, staff, banks, resellers or service providers participate in procurement, payment and support. Review Commerce restrictions separately from OFAC screening.
- Plan a replacement deployment before removing existing protection. Validate endpoint coverage, policy settings, exclusions, reporting, device-management links and incident-response integrations.
- For unusual cross-border arrangements, reseller transactions or questions about authorization, seek qualified sanctions-compliance advice.
A replacement should fit the organization’s size and technical needs; a consumer antivirus subscription is not automatically a substitute for managed enterprise endpoint detection and response. No particular alternative is government-endorsed by these actions.
Government agencies
Federal agencies had already been directed by a Department of Homeland Security binding operational directive to discontinue use of and remove Kaspersky-branded products and services from federal information systems. That earlier federal-system directive is distinct from the later Commerce market restrictions and Treasury individual sanctions.
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