More
of the Russian connection
Reported
treason arrests fuel Russian hacking intrigue
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FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 30, 2016 file photo
FSB headquarters, grey building at center, in downtown Moscow, Russia. Moscow
has been awash with rumours of a hacking-linked espionage plot at the highest
level since cyber-security firm Kaspersky said one of its executives with ties
to the Russian intelligence services had been arrested on treason charges. (AP
Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — In the
days since it emerged that four men had been arrested on treason charges linked
to cyber intelligence and Russia's domestic security agency, conspiracy
theories and speculation about the case have swept through Moscow.
Was it some fallout
from the alleged Russian hacking of the U.S. presidential election? Were they
part of a hunt for a possible mole who tipped off American intelligence
agencies? Was it a power struggle within Russia's security services?
Specifics of the case
are murky, and no Russian government officials have commented publicly. Russian
media have been filled with lurid, often contradictory, details that most
assume are leaked by warring factions of intelligence officers.
Linking the arrests to
the U.S. vote would mean joining the dots between a series of shadowy actors in
the Russian internet world.
In one of the few
formal acknowledgements of the case, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian defense lawyer
specializing in treason cases, confirmed to The Associated Press that at least
four arrests on linked treason charges had taken place. He declined to
elaborate.
U.S. intelligence
agencies alleged in early January that President Vladimir Putin ordered a
campaign to influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of Donald Trump,
with actions that included using a group called Fancy Bear to hack email
accounts of individuals on the Democratic National Committee.
In an unclassified
version of their report, the agencies did not disclose how the U.S. learned
what it said it knows, and Russia has denied the accusations.
"I have long
assumed there has to be some human resource for U.S. intelligence," said
Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian security services and a senior
researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague.
The first arrest emerged
last week with the news of the detention of Ruslan Stoyanov, an executive at
Kaspersky Lab, a cyber security firm.
Stoyanov apparently
traveled widely as the head of the company's computer incidents investigations.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he was employed by the Russian Interior
Ministry's cybercrime unit in the early 2000s and hired by Kaspersky in 2012.
Kaspersky has said the charges against Stoyanov relate to a time before he
joined the company.
Multiple Russian media
outlets have reported the detention of three officers working for the
cybercrime division of the FSB, Russia's domestic security agency, at around
the same time as Stoyanov's arrest in December. Two of the men have been named
in Russian media as Col. Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the FSB's Information
Security Center (TsIB), and a subordinate, Maj. Dmitry Dokuchayev. Pavlov said
a fourth defendant in the case was his client, but he refused to reveal his
name.
TsIB is an
"experienced cyber espionage outfit" that has expanded rapidly in
recent years, according to Galeotti. "Their job is to hoover up everything
they can."
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