“The number of successful projects of this scale is calculated in units”

The head of the business development group for the domestic KasperskyOS of Kaspersky Lab told Kommersant about the risks and opportunities of creating a domestic mobile ecosystem based on Android Viktor Ivanovsky.

— The Russian authorities are discussing the development of an independent mobile operating system and building a sovereign ecosystem on its basis. How timely is this?

— The idea of ​​building an independent mobile operating system is neither new nor exclusive; work is underway in many countries around the world. The reasons, too, tend to be general—the desire to manage cybersecurity risks associated with mobile device infrastructure, data, and business applications. The more active the cyber attackers, the more urgent the task.

– Now we are talking about an ecosystem based on AOSP. How safe is it?

— Products built on the basis of open source have their pluses and minuses. From the point of view of cybersecurity, conditions are created for “attacks through the supply chain” – supply chain attack. Attackers use the injection of malicious or potentially malicious code into minor components that are part of a software product or software platform that are extremely difficult to detect. The problem has become the subject of heated discussions at all levels.

– Let’s assume that a number of large players have developed a mobile OS based on AOSP. What to do next with it, how to form a fleet of devices?

— To harmonize the ecosystem, the mobile OS must meet the requirements of the market and develop in the rhythm of modern technologies. Any imbalance will lead to a slowdown and eventually a significant backlog of the ecosystem and a sharp reduction in the number of devices. The growth in the number of hardware platforms, applications, integrations is primarily a consequence of interaction with the market and balancing the ecosystem.

— How complicated and expensive is the process of developing a national mobile ecosystem and what should be included in such a project?

“This is a really complicated and expensive process. We understand like no one else, since we ourselves are developing our own micronuclear OS and the ecosystem around it. The process should include building up work with technology partners – developers of hardware platforms, interaction with microelectronics manufacturers, with commercial software developers, technology evangelism, gathering market needs and requirements. As practice shows, the number of successful projects of this scale is calculated in units.

— Are there any plans to bring your operating system to the retail segment?

— KasperskyOS is designed for cyberimmune, secure by design (Secure-by-Design) solutions. First of all, we see a need for this in the corporate segment – in the industrial sector, in the field of the Internet of things, even in scenarios for office use of corporate devices. One day the world will come to a state where “structurally safe” IT solutions will become the standard for the user segment as well, but this will take time.

– The project of the national mobile ecosystem will compete with your OS. Are you planning to participate in it?

— The diversity and specificity of use cases for devices and applications leads to the fact that the ecosystems of individual developers not only coexist, but also help each other develop in some way. Each round of technological solutions leads to the fact that not only a specific product or ecosystem improves, but the level of technoculture as a whole grows. So the projects that develop in parallel with KasperskyOS would rather be positioned as like-minded people.

Interviewed by Timofey Kornev