On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission added Russia’s Kaspersky Lab to its “,” labeling the cybersecurity agency an “unacceptable” nationwide safety threat to the US. The transfer marks the primary time the company has blacklisted a Russian firm. 

With the choice, US firms can’t use subsidies from the FCC’s $8 billion Universal Service Fund for supporting telecom deployments in rural and underserved communities to buy services and products from Kaspersky. All seven different organizations on the listing hail from China, with among the many most notable being .

FCC Commissioner Brendan Car said the designation would assist the US safe its networks from “threats posed by Chinese and Russian state-backed entities searching for to interact in espionage and in any other case hurt America’s pursuits.” The two different firms the FCC added to the listing on Friday had been and , each of which had been already topic to earlier restrictions.

“This decision is not based on any technical assessment of Kaspersky products – that the company continuously advocates for – but instead is being made on political grounds,” Kaspersky following the announcement. The firm famous it was able to work with the FCC and different US authorities companies to handle any regulatory issues.

The transfer is partly symbolic. Before Friday’s announcement, a 2017 by former President Donald Trump had already banned the federal authorities from utilizing Kaspersky software program. The FCC didn’t cite Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine for this most up-to-date transfer.