“Sergei Mikhailov, a top cybersecurity specialist in the FSB, and his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev are being accused of breaking their oath and working with the CIA.” Interfax News Agency

On December 4 2016, the Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Ruslan Stoyanov, the former head of Kaspersky Lab’s Computer Incident Investigation Department. On the same day, they also arrested FSB colonel Sergey Mikhailov and his colleague Major Dmitry Dokuchaev, both senior officers of the 2nd Operational Management of FSB Information Security Center, as well as an unnamed third FSB Officer. Russian media have just revealed his identity. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

Novaya Gazeta has just revealed the name of the third FSB officer arrested on charges of treason: Georgy Fomchenkov. Very little is know about this 40 year old FSB officer and his role in this high-profile case.

According to the Kommersant, Georgy Fomchenkov had been involved as an expert in the investigation of the DDoS attack on ‘Assist’ payment system in 2010.

FSB Colonel Sergey Mikhailov, Major Dmitry Dokuchaev, FSB officer Georgy Fomchenkov and former head of Kaspersky Lab’s Computer Incident Investigations Dept Ruslan Stoyanov are accused of passing secret information to the US intelligence community.

The four men are detained on charges of high treason (Art. 275 of the Russian Criminal Code).

The deputy Director of the FSB Information Security Center — Department of Information Technology (DIT) — Dmitry Pravikov is currently under investigation.

Zhahongir Yuldashev was appointed as temporarily chief in charge of operations instead of Mikhailov, and Alexey Grachev was appointed as the Interim Head of the DIT to replace Dmitry Praviko . There is obviously a major crisis but the reasons remain unknown.

A link to Shaltay Boltay?

Between October and December 2016, the Federal Security Service (FSB) have arrested Anonymous International/Shaltay-Boltay leader Vladimir Anikeev, his computer expert Alexander Glazastikov as well as two of his alleged accomplices Aleksandr Filinov and Konstantin Tepljakov. Vladimir Anikeev’s girlfriend Irina Shevchenko is on the “wanted list”. There are also confusing and contradictory reports regarding Vitalina Zerny who is said to be the “wife” of Anikeev and/or his accomplice.

The arrest of the high-ranking officers of the Federal Security Service – Sergey Mikhaylov, Dmitry Dokuchayev and Georgy Fomchenkov — may or may not be connected with the case of the Shaltay Boltay hack group.

Shaltay Boltay computer expert Alexander Glazastikov has suggested that the story ‘could’ be true, but Anikeev’s lawyer stated that the two cases are completely unrelated.

Ivan Pavlov, the lawyer of one of the security officers arrested for treason, denied any link to the Shaltay Boltay case.

The members of this group –Shaltay Boltay — are charged with part 3 of Article 272 (Illegal Access to Computer Information).

Connnecting the dots…

FSB Colonel Sergey Mikhailov, Major Dmitry Dokuchaev, FSB officer Georgy Fomchenkov and former head of Kaspersky Lab’s Computer Incident Investigations Dept Ruslan Stoyanov have all collaborated on a high-profile case.

They were all involved in the investigation of the criminal case regarding the DDoS-attack on ‘Assist’ payment system in July 2010, which resulted in the sale of electronic tickets for Aeroflot flights being unavailable for an extended period of time.

As a result of this investigation, Russian businessman Pavel Vrublevsky was sentenced to two and a half-year in jail. Pavel Vrublevsky has claimed that he had been framed by the FSB officers after he accused them of working for a US Intelligence Agency.

Finally, the FBI has traced back suspicious hacking activities during the US Presidential campaign to servers that belong to… Pavel Vrublevsky. That is a lot of coincidences.

Acknowledgment: I am grateful to Anna Lewin — Public Relations Manager at CITADEL MEDIA GROUP — for kindly informing me about these new developments. [Crime Russia]

REFERENCES

Name of 4th defendant in FSB Information Security Center officers’ treason case revealed — Crime Russia

FSB officers accused of treason blame recruitment — Crime Russia

Fourth defendant in treason case dealt with payment services for porn sites — Crime Russia