politico[.]com/story/2019/01/09/russia-kaspersky-lab-nsa-cybersecurity-1089131
The U.S. gov uses a LOT of contractors for Lots of reasons... The status & power of a gov dept. head is tied to the budget they have at their disposal, and big dollar contracts make for bigger budgets. There are fewer restrictions on hiring contractors vs. hiring employees, and the money to pay them often comes from different places, some with fewer restrictions or controls. Since gov contracting firms can make huge amounts of money, there's plenty of incentive for them to make gifts, payments, promises etc. that maybe are not in the country's best interests.
Many U.S. gov contractors are also a bit lax when it comes to security. One famous example is Snowdon, but another, less well-known example is Harold T. Martin III, who took ~50TB worth from the NSA & other gov dept.s. The NSA didn't catch him, despite ramping up security after Snowdon -- instead "... he got caught because he was an idiot" and Kaspersky turned him in. This article is IMHO an interesting read that talks about that.
The article does seem to favor Kaspersky, at least a little, which could I guess I'll say maybe encourage some politically-based thoughts... I don't know that it's actually possible to get an unbiased read on Russia & its activities currently, what with all the press and analysis of Russia-based efforts during the 2016 U.S. elections, as well as in the EU. Along those lines I'd like to mention a perspective that I *think* is legit... It seems it's somewhat common in Russia to do things that Putin may look on favorably, though often he has no prior knowledge of these activities. And these activities are not all undertaken by people with lots of geopolitical, international affairs, or marketing experience &/or smarts. Some seem sophisticated -- others not so much.
The point I would make is that even when the players have direct government ties, their actions may have been their own ideas, & sometimes those ideas that they put into motion were ill conceived. That's not intended to be pro Russia, or against it, but maybe, hopefully might help you make some sense of whatever you read concerning Russian activities.