Russian Cybercrime Agent, Kaspersky Lab Exec Arrested For Linkage On 2016 US Presidential Election Hacking

A Russian cybercrime agent has been arrested for treason. It has been said that the senior official is linked to last year's election hacking and was arrested in Moscow.

According to the New York Times, the senior official who was arrested is Sergei Mikhailov. The cybercrime agent is a senior officer of the Federal Security Service which is the main successor to the K.G.B.

Mikhailov served in the Federal Security Service under the Department of Information Security, the agency's cybercrime branch. The branch was linked to the American election hacking but the arrest was not clear whether the arrest was related to the hack.

The cybercrime officer was detained along with another cyber crime expert Ruslan Stoyanov based on a report from Engadget. Ruslan is the head of the computer incident response investigation at Kaspersky Lab.

Ruslan was arrested last December for charges of treason. There were no details released regarding the cause of the arrest but the company has said that it had nothing to do with Ruslan's work.

The arrests come after the US has accused the FSB and the Russian military Main Intelligence Directorate of hacking the Democratic National Committee and other electoral targets. This could be a sign of good will between the countries in an effort to fix ties.

American cybercrime investigators have also said that the FSB where Mikhailov is the second in command, led a group called Cozy Bear that stole data but never released it. In addition, the American's have also said the GRU operated a group called Fancy bear that stole electronic data which helped Donald Trump win the last presidential election in an alleged hack according to Forbes.

If the accusations prove to be true, this will be the one of the highest profile detentions for treason within the FSB since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It will also put a dark cloud over President Trump's victory. Stay tuned for more updates

Tags

cybercrime, Russia, US Presidential Elections

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