Its antivirus system is installed on roughly 400 million computers around the world. Since its founding in 1998, Kaspersky Lab has grown into an international giant in computer security. The young man’s rescue was a relief - but it also served as a tipping point in a battle that had been waged inside his father’s company since 2010. After four days, Russian special operations troops, known as Spetsnaz, came to Ivan’s aid, freeing him from the handcuffs he’d been locked in since his capture.

Chekunov took the lead in coordinating the rescue operation. Kaspersky immediately called Igor Chekunov, an alleged former KGB officer who acted as both a lawyer for the company and its alleged liaison with the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor to the infamous KGB, and other Russian security services. His kidnappers switched cars on the way to their destination, a house outside the Russian capital.Įugene Kaspersky, the CEO of Kaspersky Lab, was in London when an anonymous voice at the other end of the phone line informed him that his son had been kidnapped. A second man ran up and helped to push the young man into the car, where they blindfolded him. As the 20-year-old made his way from the station, a man stepped out of a green car parked by the side of the road and grabbed him. The fourth-year student worked as a programmer at his mother’s company, an offshoot of Kaspersky Lab, the Russian software company she had started with Ivan’s father.

MOSCOW - Ivan Kaspersky exited the Strogino metro station in Moscow on the morning of April 19, 2011, and walked toward the nearby office of InfoWatch.

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