I'm surprised at how many companies still use a Russian AV. You are relying on this singular piece of software to keep your computer safe, and you pick the Russian one? Particularly when Windows Defender is right there. All you have to do is....not install the Russian AV.
Probably because old habits die hard. Kaspersky used to have a pretty good reputation as far as AV software.
In the past, I used TDSSKiller to resurrect many PC's where other antivirus software failed.
Unfortunately, the whole Russia being a malicious actor negates any reasons to continue using Kaspersky.
Either you've never worked in this space, or because it wasn't present in the few IT departments you've worked in, you extrapolated that to mean it wasn't present in any large organization.
By all means, I don't disagree that American firms should not be using Kaspersky, just as Russian firms should not be using Sophos (UK based), but to pretend that they aren't one of the oldest and most well-established brands in the space is misinformed at best.
I think you confused the fact they have a retail product presence, to mean that they don't have serious enterprise solutions, but they do: NDR, XDR, agentless for hypervisors, etc.
I used Kaspersky for a short while before dropping it. Honestly, it seems like anti virus software goes into enshitification faster than any other thing I can think of. One year, a specific brand is recommended by everyone, then the next, the ceo is fucking dolphins or something.
I used to work for a major research university and they switched to Kaspersky. It baffled me that any foreign AV was permitted, let alone one made in a hostile country.
Retail generates the most margin, while enterprise generally the most revenue.
At least, that's how it works at most vendors that operate both B2C and B2B sales and product channels.
But no, Kaspersky is a major legacy player in the B2B security market with both mature and cutting edge products/solutions.
A better question might be, which companies in America were still using Kaspersky up until this month, and why.
My guess that is a mix between budgetary constraints, incompetence, and weighted risk analysis.
Imagine you're a Midwestern ice cream wholesaler, it's been a bad few years, and your 200 Kaspersky licenses were renewed with deep discounts.
You're not likely to lose any contracts for using Kaspersky, nor be a target of state sanctioned espionage, but spending $10,000 between new licensing and man hours, to rip, replace, and configure a new solution, now that could cause real issues for you.
So, between a rock and a hard place, you just wait it out as long as possible and hope that when the other shoe drops, it doesn't wreck your budget.
There are businesses that use it. I work at a small company, under 100 people and we used to use it for about six years... then we switched to Crowdstrike a few years back. And look how that ended up.