Russian Cybersecurity Entrepreneur Charged With Treason
Ilya Sachkov is a Russian entrepreneur and cybersecurity expert (Flickr).
Russian investigators formally charged cybersecurity businessman Ilya Sachkov with treason on October 7. Sachkov faces allegations of sharing classified cybersecurity information with several foreign intelligence groups.
Law enforcement officials in Moscow raided the offices of Sachkov’s company, Group-IB, on September 28. Later that day, the Lefortovo District court ruled to arrest Sachkov for a period of two months on suspicions of high treason.
Sachkov founded Group-IB, a cybersecurity firm that aids its clients—including major Russian banks and telecom providers, Interpol, and Russian law enforcement agencies—in the detection and prevention of cyber-attacks.
Sachkov has additionally served on cybercrime expert committees in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Sachkov has denied the accusations against him, and Group-IB released a statement in support of its founder.
“Group-IB’s team is confident in the innocence of the company’s CEO and his business integrity,” wrote the company.
Journalists have begun speculating on the explanations for Sachkov’s arrest. One theory postulates that Sachkov’s charges resulted from the close relationship between Group-IB’s employees and Western special services. A Russian hacker may also have contributed to the allegations against Sachkov: Pavel Sitnikov, who was interrogated by authorities following his arrest in June, allegedly gathered compromising information on the businessman.
Sachkov had documented ties to Sergei Mikhailov, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) agent convicted of treason in 2019. He also criticized Maksim Yakubets, an FSB employee—who is currently wanted by the FBI—at a conference hosted by the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin. Sachkov may even have allowed Nikita Kislitsin, the head of Group-IB’s network security department, to pass information about Russian hackers to the U.S. government.
Those tried under the treason article are seldom acquitted, and Sachkov could be sentenced to up to twenty years in prison. The FSB oversees criminal cases involving treason charges due to the secret nature of the information involved in the trials. These cases are classified and their details withheld from the public. Hearings take place behind closed doors, lawyers sign non-disclosure agreements, and the court withholds information from defendants for security purposes.
Business ombudsman Boris Titov demanded increased transparency in the investigation into Sachkov.
“Given the scale and uniqueness of the figure of entrepreneur Sachkov for the whole IT industry of Russia, it is necessary to explain the investigation. Otherwise, a critical blow will be struck on the sector and its investment attractiveness. IT will run from the country,” wrote Titov in a Facebook post.
Dmitry Peskov, speaking for the Kremlin, maintained, however, that Sachkov’s arrest would not deter other IT firms from engaging with Russian governmental organizations.
Sergey Polovnikov, head of the Content-Review project, also believes that Sachkov’s arrest will have little impact on the Russian information security market.
“If customers work with Western companies even after their connections with the special services become public, it is not clear why Russian developers should have any problems,” he said.