Several news services are reporting that the son of Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky Labs, has been kidnapped for ransom in Russia.
The reports, including one from BBC News , are based on unconfirmed stories reported in Russian newspapers about the alleged kidnapping.
According to the reports, Ivan Kaspersky, 20, was on his way to work when he was snatched by the kidnappers.
Russian secret service and other law enforcement officials have been searching for him for at least two days, the BBC reported quoting Interfax news agency. The kidnappers have allegedly demanded the equivalent of nearly $4.3 million for his return.
A spokesman for Kaspersky's U.S. operations today said the company has no information to share on the matter for the moment.
Kaspersky Labs claims more than 300 million customers of its products -- mostly consumers -- worldwide. Last week, market research firm Gartner listed Kapersky as the third-largest consumer security software vendor in the world, with annual revenues growing at 42% over the past year. The company is ranked fifth worldwide in terms of software revenues from sales of enterprise security software, according to Gartner.
Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His e-mail address is [email protected] .
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