The Kremlin on Friday criticised the US decision to ban Moscow's cybersecurity firm Kaspersky over security concerns as creating "unfair competition" from American companies. 

The comments came a day after Washington banned the firm, saying it presented a "national security risk."  

"Kaspersky Lab is a company which is very, very competitive on the international level," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. 

"This is a favourite method of unfair competition from the part of the United States. They resort to such tactics every time."  

The US Commerce Department said Russia had used the company to "collect and weaponise sensitive US information." 

Kaspersky has its headquarters in Moscow and has offices in 31 countries, servicing millions of users. 

As well as banning the sale of Kaspersky's antivirus software, the US also added three entities linked to the firm to a list of companies deemed to pose national security concerns.