CEO of Russia’s largest security company arrested for treason

Ilya Sachkov, CEO of cybersecurity firm Group-IB, who has been investigating links between illegal sites and criminal gangs over the past few years, has been arrested by Russian authorities on charges of treason for passing data on to foreign spies. done. Group-IB is issuing a statement that Sachikov’s CEO is innocent.

On September 27, 2021, Russian authorities searched the Group-IB headquarters and arrested CEO Sachikov on the 28th. According to a court order, CEO Sachikov is expected to be arrested for at least two months. If found guilty of treason by a trial, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

According to local media, CEO Sachikov denies the charge of treason and denies that he cooperated with foreign intelligence agencies to cause rumors of damage to Russian interests and national loss. The indictment against Sachikov was confidential, and details were not disclosed.

Group-IB said in a statement released on its official website that CEO Sachikov was not guilty, and that even if he was arrested, co-founder Dmitry Volkov would continue to operate normally on behalf of the CEO.

Sachikov is the CEO of Group-IB and also a professor at Baumann University of Technology in Russia. In the past, he received a commendation from President Putin as an outstanding entrepreneur.

Founded by CEO Saatchikov, Group-IB is now a Singapore legal-based cybersecurity company. Group-IB has so far been actively investigating Russian piracy and published a report in 2019 of a huge illicit content delivery network providing tens of thousands of movies and TV shows to pirated streaming sites. Based on this report, the Motion Picture Association, an American film industry group, is taking legal action against the pirated CDN.

As a cybersecurity firm, it has contracted with law enforcement agencies around the world and conducted online criminal investigations. According to a profile of CEO Sachikov published in the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, he was involved in more than 80% of high-profile investigations in the field of cybercrime in Russia and the authorities.

An anonymous source said Sachikov has always been in a legally ambiguous position because of his involvement in the cybersecurity industry, suggesting that he may have done something that harmed the interests of others. Related information can be found here.