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A Suspicious Death and Three Cyber Arrests Point to a New Twist in the US Election Hack
Some wonder why the Kremlin wanted this news out. Others called it 'too big not to leak.’ In the eerie world of international espionage, nothing of late has topped the official US accusation that Russian president Vladimir Putin plotted to put US president Donald Trump in power. Now, the tale has become even more salacious with the reported arrest of three Russian cyber experts, one of whom was perp-walked out of a meeting with a bag over his head, and the suspicious death of a former KGB general. Russia experts say the episode suggests a possible purge related to the US election hack. In a twist of Kremlinology, others say Putin may only be pretending to have arrested and killed cyber operatives. Or, say still others, neither observation may be true. “Can we really trust Russian news?” asks Dave Aitel, a former analyst with the US National Security Agency, and now CEO of Immunity, a cyber intrusion protection firm.
The story of the arrests appears to have broken at the Russian newspaper Kommersant on Jan. 25. The paper reported (link in Russian) the arrests of Sergei Mikhailov, who heads the Center for Information Security, an arm of the Russian intelligence agency known by the acronym FSB; and Ruslan Stoyanov, a senior researcher with Kaspersky Lab, the computer security company. Both men were last seen the first week of December. The independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that (Russian), in a Stalin-style touch, a bag was suddenly thrown over Mikhailov’s head during a meeting of fellow intelligence officers, and he was led out. Mikhailov has not been seen since. The third arrest was of Dmitry Dokuchayev, a hacker known by the name “Forb.”
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