Is Kaspersky safe to use in 2026?
In the United States: no. Kaspersky has been banned since September 2024, and US users no longer receive virus definition updates, which makes the software unsafe in practice. Outside the US, its lab results remain excellent, but you must weigh the geopolitical risk yourself. Most people are better served by Bitdefender or ESET.
The US government banned the sale and updating of Kaspersky software in September 2024, citing national security concerns about the company’s Russian roots. The practical consequence matters more than the politics: antivirus lives on its update stream, and Americans still running Kaspersky have received no virus definition updates since then. Outdated antivirus gives a false sense of security, which is worse than none.
Outside the US, the technical picture is unchanged: AV-Comparatives still ranks Kaspersky’s engine among the very best in its 2026 consumer tests, and the pricing is aggressive. No public evidence of misuse of customer data has been produced, and Kaspersky has moved data processing for many regions to Switzerland. The question for a buyer in Europe or elsewhere is one of risk appetite, not detection rates.
Our position is pragmatic: protection software is a trust product, and trust includes the scenario where geopolitics cuts you off from updates overnight, as it did for American customers. Bitdefender (Romania, EU) and ESET (Slovakia, EU) offer comparable protection without that variable, which is why they are our recommendations even where Kaspersky remains legal.