Russian intel officer, cybersecurity investigator arrested for possible treason

Doug Stanglin | USA TODAY

A top manager for Russia's largest cybersecurity firm and a senior Russian intelligence officer have been arrested on possible treason charges, the newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday.

Kaspersky Lab's confirmed the arrest of Ruslan Stoyanov, head of its computer incidents investigation unit, respected economic newspaper Kommersant reported. He was reportedly being held at the Lefortovo prison, a notorious prison used for political prisoners by the KGB in the Soviet Union.

Stoyhanov's Linkedin profile says he worked for the Moscow Cyber Crime unit of the Russian Interior Ministry for six years beginning in 2000.

Kaspersky’s spokeswoman, Maria Shirokova, said in a statement that Stoyanov’s arrest “has nothing to do with Kaspersky Lab and its operations,” the Associated Press reported. She said the company has no details of the charges Stoyanov faces, but added that the investigation dates back to the time before Stoyanov was hired by Kaspersky.

Also arrested was Sergei Mikhailov, described as a senior intelligence officer with the FSB, which is the successor to the KGB, the newspaper reported. Mikhailov is also active in public organizations, particularly the Information Security cluster of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications, according to Kommersant.

The pair were apparently arrested last month. The newspaper reported their social networks pages went silent during the first week of December.

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of meddling in the U.S. presidential election through hacking to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Former President Obama said the U.S. would respond with its own measures, some covert.

Russia has rejected such claims. U.S. and EU officials also have accused Russia of hacking other Western institutions and expressed concern that it may try to influence elections this year in Germany, France and the Netherlands. It wasn’t immediately clear if the reported arrests in Moscow are linked to such allegations.

Andrei Soldatov, who has studied the Internet and Russian security services for more than a decade, called the arrest of the Kaspersky manager “unprecedented,” the AP reported.

“It destroys a system that has been 20 years in the making, the system of relations between intelligence agencies and companies like Kaspersky,” he told AP. “Intelligence agencies used to ask for Kaspersky’s advice, and this is how informal ties were built. This romance is clearly over.”