This isn’t really a comment about Kaspersky, because I don’t know if the implication that they are involved in Russian cyberespionage is true or not. However, in general, the FBI is very involved in tracking the different groups associated with nation state cyberespionage. One of the most common ways that a large company in the private sector finds out that it has been compromised is via FBI notification. Not even close to the same situation here, but it does illustrate that domestic network security falls within the scope of their operations.

Whether the federal government should be lobbying against a private companies’ products is a more complicated issue. I think, if it could be demonstrated that there is sufficient evidence to link them to unethical behavior, it might be appropriate.