Congress invites Eugene Kaspersky to address claims about his company's products

“We want the government, our users and the public to fully understand that having Russian roots does not make us guilty,” Eugene Kaspersky wrote in June.

This story has been updated with a response from Eugene Kaspersky 

Congress has officially invited Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of the Moscow-based cybersecurity company that bears his name, to testify before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee about the security of his company’s products.

The hearing, scheduled for Sept. 27, will focus on the risks Kaspersky products pose to U.S. information systems.

Kaspersky offered to testify in front of Congress earlier this year on this subject.  The hearing, if it takes place, will garner a lot of attention due to the growing tension between Kaspersky and the U.S. government.

“We want the government, our users and the public to fully understand that having Russian roots does not make us guilty,” he wrote in a blog post in June.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security ordered federal agencies to remove Kaspersky products from federal networks within 90 days.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., has been a vocal supporter a Kaspersky ban and called Kaspersky “a direct threat to national security” on Twitter. Earlier this month, the senator wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for a federal ban.

The FBI has been holding briefings with major private sector firms urging them to push Kaspersky out of their systems. Just last week, the U.S. retail titan Best Buy removed Kaspersky products from the store.

Kaspersky did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Update: the Russian businessman agreed to testify before the committee in a brief post to social media. He noted, however, that getting a visa may be difficult. 

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