RUSSIA: Cyber Security Expert And Senior Intel Officer Charged With Treason, Unknown Link To US Hacking

International Business Times reports:

Kaspersky, Russia’s biggest cybersecurity firm, confirmed Wednesday its manager in charge of investigating hacking attacks, Ruslan Stoyanov, was arrested in December. Reports published earlier in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper also said Stoyanov was arrested along with a senior Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence officer, and that both faced charges of treason.

Kaspersky spokeswoman Maria Shirokova reportedly said in a statement that Stoyanov’s arrest “has nothing to do with Kaspersky Lab and its operations” and that the company had no details about the charges against Stoyanov. But she mentioned that investigations against Stoyanov had begun even before he was hired by Kaspersky.

Founded in 1997 in Moscow, Kaspersky Lab is a cybersecurity and anti-virus provider present in almost 200 countries, and its products and technologies are used by over 300 million users. Kaspersky was recently accused by U.S. intelligence agencies of hacking into election data to help President Donald Trump win. Russia dismissed these allegations, and it is not clear if the arrests have any links to U.S. allegations.

Kaspersky is the world’s fourth-largest anti-virus vendor and last reported $619M in annual sales.