Thread by @ScottMStedman

BREAKING: The FBI is probing a Russian cybersecurity firm that allegedly has major clients in the US. There are concerns that the company's products could be a backdoor for Russian intelligence. I spoke with more than a dozen sources over 6 months:

forensicnews.net/russian-cybers…

Infotecs was founded by Andrey CHAPCHAEV, a former senior KGB research official who is still the largest shareholder. The company has numerous licenses with Russian intelligence and Russian state bodies. The licenses are not shown on the English version of the website...

In Sept 2018, the US Commerce Department put Infotecs on an export ban list, saying that Infotecs was had “enabled the activities of malicious Russian cyber actors.”

Still, Infotecs had an active US presence...

One senior Infotecs employee has posted publicly that Rutgers, Hackensack University Medical Center, and Cigna hospitals use Infotecs' cybersecurity/VPN tools. I tried to run that down with varying levels of success. No one wants to talk.

I spoke with @lpp_crypto, a security researcher at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRI) who found that a critical function in Infotecs' encryption was *not* derived randomly, and could potentially indicate a backdoor for the owners.

@lpp_crypto Two former Infotecs employees tell me that the FBI has questioned them. One of those employees said that the FBI asked questions about the sources of funding for Infotecs’ activity in the US. forensicnews.net/russian-cybers…

Infotecs has also employed a couple who appear close with Artem KLYUSHIN, a man the Senate Intelligence Committee said is a “Kremlin-linked bot developer who has supported Russian influence operations.”

Klyushin and his wife were with Trump during the 2013 Russia trip.

While her husband was working for Infotecs in New York, a friend of the Kremlin bot developer who had access to Trump in Russia posted a bizarre photo outside Trump Tower on Instagram:

"Here I'm 🙋‍♀️ Mr.Trump I'm waiting for you with my naked knee💃🏼 Time is ticking 🤫"

Infotecs' "secure" products are being called into question, Commerce says they enable Russian hackers, vague referencing to Trump kompromat from employees, and an FBI investigation. And yet they appear to have major US companies using their products! forensicnews.net/russian-cybers…

Dan Maki, Senior Intelligence Manager at @ISDglobal: "a cybersecurity company founded by a former Russian spy, which specializes in cryptography [and] has a lengthy business history of servicing some of Russia’s most sensitive agencies? That’s a Soviet embassy-sized red flag..."

“If I were a client of theirs, I would at the very least be asking questions about where my data is being stored, and what controls are in place with regard to who can access it.” forensicnews.net/russian-cybers…

That's all for this thread, I encourage you all to read the full story: forensicnews.net/russian-cybers…

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Thank you to @thomasafine for first tipping me off to Infotecs.