Customers of Kaspersky antivirus in the United States found out in the last few days that their cybersecurity software was automatically replaced with a new one called UltraAV, according to several customers who posted on social media.

Kaspersky was added to the US Commerce Department's Entity List in June, which marks the firm as a threat to national security. A company or individual on that list is barred from doing business with US companies and accessing US technologies, which has led Kaspersky to close down its US operation.

Some US Kaspersky security users got a big surprise when their protection was suddenly replaced by UltraAV due to a government ban. But Kaspersky’s demise has been looming for years.