China has updated the list of software acceptable for use in its country leaving out software applications the US firm Symantec and Russian firm Kaspersky.
The country lists five Chinese software brands as approved for use in the country including Venustech, CAJinchen, Qihoo 360 Technology Co, Beijing Jiangmin and Rising. State controlled news publisher People’s Daily reported the news yesterday on its English Twitter feed.
While Symantec has responded saying that it doesn’t use its software to disguise spying activity, Kaspersky said that the company is investigating it and that the issue is too “premature” to be commented on before the investigations are over.
This is reportedly the result of China’s increased scrutiny over foreign technology, following Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA surveillance practises. A few months ago, the company banned the use of US based Microsoft’s Windows 8 platform after its operating system Windows XP used in most computers in China, received the final update.
In addition to Snowden’s revelations, China and the US have been having hard feelings toward each other after the US blamed Chinese officials for the hacking of the devices belonging to some of US’ think tanks.
Some unnamed Chinese officials also said that the Public Security Ministry notified that Symantec software contains vulnerabilities. Last month, China has banned the use of the data loss prevention software from Symantec. At that time, a spokeswoman for the company said that there was no sign of banning anti-virus programs too.
However, Symantec has already started losing out in terms of revenue from sales in the Asia Pacific region, with a drop by 10 percent amounting to $1.2 billion in the last fiscal year ended March 2014. Notably, Symantec’s share prices fell by 2.1 percent following the announcement which is the biggest price drop for the company since March.
