The arrested head of Group-IB appears in the FBI documents in connection with the investigation against Russian hackers

The head of the Group-IB corporation, Ilya Sachkov, who was arrested on charges of treason, appeared in the FBI documents. He is mentioned in connection with the investigation by the US authorities against Russian hackers.

The name of the head of Group-IB surfaced in the documents of the US Department of Justice, which were made public in 2020 after the initiation of a case against the former employee of the corporation Nikita Kislitsin, who is accused by the American authorities of cybercrimes. This is about interrogation protocol Kislitsin, carried out by the FBI back in 2014 after the arrest of a Russian. Defendant since 2013 still working at Group-IB as the head of the network security department, but the interrogation concerned episodes that occurred before his employment with the corporation.

The FBI accused Kislitsin of obtaining a compromised Formspring user database from hacker Yevgeny Nikulin and selling it. After the Russian was shown the indictment against him, he replied that “prison is not an option for him.” One of the reasons Kislitsin explained his cooperation with the investigation was that he started working for Group-IB and could no longer “simultaneously engage in criminal activity and fight it” (the other two are children and religion).

The Russian offered to share with the FBI data on users of the FETEAM carding forum and methods of combating fraudsters that were developed by Group-IB. The document states that the head of the company, Ilya Sachkov, gave the go-ahead for this.

“The General Director of Group-IB Ilya Sachkov is aware and supported Kislitsin’s proposal to share information with the FBI,” the secret service said in a report.

“Kislitsin said:” I am quite open to cooperation, “and his goal was” to mitigate the problems. ” He also stated that he seeks to “create a win-win situation” as a result of communication with agents. Mlaker explained that the punishment for the crime will depend on the degree of his cooperation with the investigation. In response, Kislitsin said that he could provide a lot of information, because he knows people in the “community” whom the FBI considers involved in criminal activity, ”the interrogation report says.

Kislitsin refused the services of a lawyer and told the investigation everything he knew about the Russian hackers, whom the American authorities began to persecute in subsequent years. In particular, Kislitsin testified against Evgeny Nikulin (convicted in the USA for 7.5 years for hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring), Alexey Belan (introduced to the US sanctions list for hacking Yahoo) and Dmitry Dokuchaev (former FSB major, sentenced to 6 years in Russia for transferring data about Russian hackers to the United States, came out to freedom on parole).

We add that a source close to Sachkov, The Insider, did not confirm the version that charges of treason were brought against him because of the testimony of Kislitsin. At the same time, the source noted that Sachkov knew about the possible arrest and “just thought that everything would be okay.” According to the source, Sachkov was detained before flying to Singapore, where Group-IB’s head office is located.

Recall that the founder of Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov, was arrested in the case of high treason. Searches were carried out at the company’s headquarters and offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Sachkov is accused of transferring data to foreign intelligence, he himself does not admit his guilt.