Following the pressure from the United States government, Kaspersky was forced to withdraw from conducting business in the United States. Subsequently, they sold their customer base in the US to a security company named Pango in early September.
Recently, former Kaspersky users in the US have reported sudden disappearance of Kaspersky software and the installation of a new antivirus software called UltraAV (owned by Pango) on their computers without notification. Many users have complained that upon starting their computers, they found UltraAV already in operation and were unable to uninstall it (examples from Reddit threads, Kaspersky forums, and Neowin boards).
There has been no official statement from either Kaspersky or Pango yet. However, on the UltraAV website, it is stated that former Kaspersky users will be automatically switched to UltraAV in mid-August.
Pango and UltraAV are not widely recognized, which may cause concern for users finding UltraAV suddenly appearing on their machines without consent. Axios previously reported that Pango separated from a family safety software company named Aura (announced on the Aura website) and mentioned that Pango acquired Kaspersky’s customer base in the US, estimated to be around 1 million users.
Source – Neowin
TLDR: Kaspersky faced pressure to withdraw from conducting business in the US and sold their US customer base to Pango. Former Kaspersky users in the US have reported the unauthorized installation of UltraAV software. No official statements have been released yet.
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