Among Businesses That Cut Ties With Russia Are Major Cybersecurity Companies

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many businesses have announced that they’ll suspend their operations in Russia. This is a choice made by conglomerates are siding either with Russia or Ukraine.

So far, major chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks have closed hundreds of restaurants that once operated across Russia. Global consumer brands including Heinz and Coca Cola also announced their support for Ukraine by suspending their business in Russia.

Media companies stopped offering their services in Russia. Streaming giant Netflix announced ‌Russians won’t be able to create new accounts.

TikTok restricted its services in Russia by putting a stop to live streaming and new content creation. The sanction that left Russian TikTok in a view-only mode results from the spreading of Kremlin propaganda on the app.

Cloud vendors are pulling out their businesses and disabling access to cloud technology that businesses use for scaling their services – one that individuals have used to create more storage space and save their memories in digital form.

Companies offering cloud computing related services that halted their services for Russia. These include Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure.

Members of another growing industry are also suspending their sales in Russia. Cybersecurity giants Avast and DigiCert declared they’ll be cutting ties with Russia.

Avast has employees in Ukraine and Russia to whom they’re still paying a full salary and offering relocation.

In their announcement to stop providing services in Russia and Belarus to condemn the nation’s attack, Avast also promises to allow free cybersecurity protection for Ukrainian citizens.

What does that mean for Russian businesses and civilians?

Hacking is another war front in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Without tools to fend off hacking attempts, businesses and civilians on both sides are left vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Hacking attempts go both ways. Pro-Russian cybercriminals have thus far hacked into Ukrainian military, finance, and government sites.

Russian hackers have introduced new cybersecurity concerns such as new wiper malware. Once it’s on the computer, it gives the ability to hackers to completely erase hard disks. So far, the wiper tool has been used in multiple cyber attacks on Ukraine.

Even companies that had strong cybersecurity tools, services, and protocols struggled to defend themselves against these breaches.

To fight back on the cyberwarfare front, Ukraine has established the IT army of Ukraine. Their primary goals are to protect critical infrastructures and block cyber spying.

So, what does a boycott from cybersecurity vendors mean for Russia?

For Russian companies, cybersecurity firms halting their sales means that they’ll lose essential security tools such as Security Service Edge (SSE) that can defend them from different ‌malware and protect their remote workers from leaked data and breaches.

Depending on the industry and type of business that halted their operations in Russia, refusing to work with Russia has different consequences. For example, losing cybersecurity protection amid war will hit differently than losing access to a McDonald’s drive through.

Regardless of the services vendors suspend in Russia, Russian employees will be out of business and thus the war will hit the civilians the hardest.

Lack of cybersecurity measures will equally affect Russian citizens that support and don’t support the war in Ukraine. It also might emphasize growing surveillance concerns and censorship in Russia.

But why are companies cutting ties with Russia? Is this decision better or worse for their business?

Whether they are under the pressure to side with either Russia or Ukraine largely depends on the size of the company.

Most companies that have announced to cut ties are giants and conglomerates that can afford to cut off an entire country and still continue to operate as they normally would.

For businesses that operate on such a scale, not offering their services in Russia is a cause that many customers will stand behind.

In recent years, customers have been getting more and more attentive to the politics behind and values of the brand they purchase from.

Consumers have started refusing to buy from companies that don’t align with their beliefs and even call them out if they think their advertising campaigns are performative.

Therefore, for companies that can pull their business out of Russia, this might be a smart move from the marketing point of view as well.

In the recent survey, 82% of adult Americans support the brand's decision to boycott Russia. Only 10% of surveyed individuals think brands shouldn’t cut their ties with Russia.

Also, this means that they might avoid brands that support Russia as this lowers their opinion of a brand.

Cutting ties is about avoiding long-term reputational damage that a company might suffer because customers are watching closely and deciding which brands they’ll support in the future.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes