Vanya is back home safe and sound. Thanks for your support!

Dear friends,

First of all I would like to thank all of you for your support during the recent events related to my son’s kidnapping. We received thousands of e-mails, phone calls, social media messages from all around the world expressing your concern and sincere sympathy, which I do appreciate and value. The community support gave us the strength to get through these hard days.

It was a very hard time for me and my family and we are very happy that things ended successfully. Vanya, my son, many of you know him from the news reports as Ivan, is now in a safe place and feeling okay. We hope that in the near future he will come back to work and continue his developer’s career.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all professional parties involved in this operation. Everything was planned and executed in a very professional manner. Specifically I would like to thank Kaspersky Lab’s internal security service, The Russian Federal Security Service and The Moscow Police. Their well-coordinated efforts resulted in a quick and effective settlement of this issue, where nobody got hurt and with the criminals now neutralized and waiting for the legal trial.

Also I really appreciate the way my colleagues at Kaspersky Lab supported the investigation. They acted in concert with the authorities and did their best in the rescue operation. All of the company’s units worked normally, showing not a single sign of panic. Our company carried out its business like normal, our anti-malware updates were delivered on time, technical support did their job perfectly and our R&D team is heading fast towards the launch of KAV/KIS 2012.

One may think that this incident illustrates a common practice here in Moscow. Let me assure you that, this is not the case. This is an extraordinary exception, as Moscow remains a very safe place to live and work. This is definitely a not a threat to the company’s business and we intend to continue proudly being headquartered here leveraging our Russian anti-malware and R&D talent.

I blame myself as one of the reasons for this incident, for not taking proper security measures for my family. I always thought of the people around us as supporters, admiring the success of the native company on the global market. And I still think so, despite the recent events. We just need to be more careful regarding our families as there will always be evil-intended people around. No matter what country you live in.

My special thanks go to mass media that heeded our request not to speculate on this terrible incident and deliver the public official information only. Special praises go to Reuters who demonstrated their highly professional approach free from deliberate sensationalism and common exaggeration.

I clearly understand that delivering news is the job mass media do. However, it was really unpleasant to read and watch things that didn’t reflect reality and that were broadcasted with a clear goal to generate traffic and increase circulation. And this impression doubles when you face these troubles in your own family. The most important thing is that the broadcasted misinterpretation or information distortion may lead to unrecoverable consequences when dealing with such sensitive things as kidnapping.

Please, feel free to communicate with me here at my Facebook account. I would be happy to listen to you and answer your questions. Although I cannot guarantee a timely response,  I will try to do my best.

You can read the Kaspersky Lab official announcement here.