BRATISLAVA – February 24, 2023 – This time last year we were shocked and appalled by the Russian Government's decision to invade Ukraine. As then, today we still stand strong with our friends, colleagues and customers in Ukraine. As soon as the war started, in solidarity with Ukraine and together with many businesses across the world, we stopped all sales in Russia and Belarus.

Furthermore, apart from the help we provided as a business through our research discoveries, we also contributed to the refugee relief efforts. So far, via the ESET Foundation we have donated 777,700 Euros to the relief fund to provide humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Ukraine, including donations to the Integra Foundation, a charity supplying food and necessities to Ukrainians at war, UNICEF Ukraine, the City of Bratislava and others.

“Today, I would like to confirm a further 500,000 Euros which we will be donating via the ESET Foundation for this cause. 200,000 Euros of that sum will be donated to the Integra Foundation so they can continue providing urgent humanitarian aid to Ukraine. We fervently hope that this war will soon see its end, but in the meantime, we continue our support through all possible means,” confirmed Richard Marko, ESET CEO.

You can read more about our discoveries and activities in protecting Ukraine in the cyber war on our WeLiveSecurity.com blog here. And read more below about our company position and continuous support for Ukraine since February 2022.

ESET's position on the war in Ukraine

In response to the shocking decision by the Russian Government to invade Ukraine, ESET, Europe’s leading global-scale digital security provider headquartered in EU, stopped all sales to any individuals, businesses, and organizations in Russia and Belarus. Previously, sales to government and related entities had already been prohibited from 2016, when the Russian Government introduced such tax rules, legislation and certification processes that favored local vendors. 

Complementing this decision, our integrated response to the invasion is fourfold:

We have been providing humanitarian support to Ukraine since February 2022. The ESET Foundation has allocated a fund, which has already risen to EUR 777,700, to help Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia and neighboring countries (Czech Republic, Romania, and Poland) through direct grant support. The majority of refugee families in Slovakia still draw from this continuous aid. From the aforementioned fund, ESET has provided financial aid to UNICEF Ukraine, City of Bratislava and the INTEGRA Foundation for humanitarian assistance on the ground in Ukraine.

By working closely with our Ukrainian partner’s tech support specialists, we have extended customer support to ensure continuity for our customers on the ground. Between March and May 2022, we also upgraded all our Ukrainian business customers to our highest-grade product for free and extended licenses that were about to expire for all business and consumer customers in the country at no cost.

We provide security research & insight to the many global and European bodies endeavoring to address, resolve, and mitigate the cyberthreats stemming from this conflict. ESET is committed to protecting and making the world safer with unique malware telemetry and security insights. We are sharing our research on the WeLiveSecurity blog and are increasing support for incident response. ESET Research is monitoring for threats in the digital realm that are directly related to the conflict, starting with an announcement on February 23 regarding the discovery of HermeticWiper, a new data wiping malware targeting Ukraine on the eve of Russian’s military incursion into Ukraine. Between February 27 and March 1, ESET Research published warnings about charity scams exploiting the war in Ukraine and followed with the subsequent discovery of another wiper and a worm component used to spread HermeticWiper. ESET continues to support the defensive cybersecurity posture of businesses and government organizations, including National CERT teams, within the European Union.

To bolster this response, we have upgraded security solutions for threatened organizations in the conflict zone, neighboring states, and in those states participating in the international response should they be targeted. We are also offering new and existing customers internationally the ability to add our powerful protection against zero-day attacks – ESET Dynamic Threat Defense – free of charge.

As a European vendor providing digital security for more than 30 years, the decision was taken to best represent our position and support for our European partners in cyberdefense and our shared digital security priorities.