An employee works near screens in the virus lab at the headquarters of Russian cyber security company Kaspersky Labs in Moscow July 29, 2013. — Reuters pic

ZURICH, Nov 14 — Anti-virus software provider, Kaspersky Lab, has shortlisted Malaysia for its second Data Transparency Centre, following the opening of the first in Switzerland.

Kaspersky Lab Public Affairs vice president Anton Shingarev told Bernama, the company will finalise the matter next year, with Malaysia clearly aligned with its current operations in the region.

“Malaysia is the natural choice as the country currently houses our headquarters for South-east Asia. We have met with Malaysian organisations to discuss further the plan,” he added.

However, he declined to disclose more on the meetings.

Shingarev, who is also the head of the chief executive officer’s (CEO) office, said the plan would make much sense, if the government supported it.

“Actually, we see a tentative interest by the Malaysian government. Kaspersky has a very strong and successful business in Malaysia and the government is aware about cyber risks,” he said on the sidelines of the Kasperksy Transparent Summit: Rebuilding Trust and Minimising Risk in Cybersecurity here.

Meanwhile, Kaspersky Lab’s CEO Eugene Kaspersky said the company’s transparency initiative was established earlier than the spying allegation, over the company’s antiviral software.

The Transparency Centre, will see Kasperksy relocating a number of core processes, including customer data storage to its Zurich-based Transparency Centre, which was opened yesterday.

The initiative is aimed at gaining confidence for its product integrity and trustworthiness.

Under its Global Transparency Initiative, Kaspersky plans to move some of its core processes, including processing for most regions, as well as software assembly and threat detection updates.

The facility will store and process all information for users in Europe, North America, Singapore, Australia, Japan and South Korea, with more countries to follow.

It was previously reported that Kasperksy Lab had met with Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to discuss cybersecurity challenges.

Kaspersky Asia Pacific managing director Stephan Neumeier had then shared his assessment of the next level of the cybersecurity threat and simultaneously, the antivirus provider learnt about the new policies being implemented by the government, as well as cybersecurity measures. — Bernama