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…

Consider supporting Forensic News: Patreon.com/ForensicNews
Thank you to @thomasafine for first tipping me off to Infotecs.

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More from @ScottMStedman

Jan 19
Tish James including Trump Scotland in her brief of evidence is super interesting. Didn't think they'd go after his foreign deals. ag.ny.gov/press-release/…
Trump's appraisal of his Scotland property to his tax accountant was based on a quote from Trump's own compliance officer to Forbes lol
This is brutal. Trump's counsel hired an appraiser for his Silver Springs property. The appraiser told them it was worth $29M-$50M. Trump then turned around and told his tax accountants at Mazars that it was worth $161M.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 19
Update: 2 days after my report from last month, former Soviet Foreign Ministry official Sergey Shestakov filed an amendment to state that his dealings with Oleg Deripaska's top aide are now terminated: efile.fara.gov/docs/7048-Amen…

My report from December:
forensicnews.net/retired-top-fb…
In this amendment, Shestakov, the former Soviet official says he got $25,000 from the law firm Kobre and Kim in November 2019 and $8,000 from a "business intelligence" company that does not seem to exist anywhere online in November 2021.
I've updated the article to include this new information that makes this filing even weirder. I would love to hear from the #FARA expert community @annalecta @CBHolman @JoshRudes
Read 6 tweets
Jan 15
A gunman is holding hostages at a Texas synagogue star-telegram.com/news/local/cri…
That above is huge if true. Siddiqui was a high-level Al-Qaeda operative.
Read 14 tweets
Jan 14
North Korea has fired another missile, South Korean press reports en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN202201…
Comes as North Korean servers went completely dark this morning, sign of a possible DDoS attack: nknews.org/2022/01/north-…
The last North Korean launch triggered early defensive military maneuverings in California.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 12
Fascinating. This tracks with something @MattBernardini7 and I have been looking into for a long time.

We have another shadowy oil company tied to Kozak. What did it do? It secretly paid Giuliani's buddy Artemenko, who was (is?) under FBI scrutiny: forensicnews.net/giuliani-probe…
@MattBernardini7 The new OCCRP reporting confirms what we suggested last year: Putin's buddies Medvedchuk and Kozak are secretly using oil companies and sham nominee directors in countries like Hungary and Armenia to hold vast $$$ and spread influence. forensicnews.net/giuliani-probe…
@MattBernardini7 Artemenko got this payment from an oil company in Prague in 2019 according to his company's FARA disclosures.

What Artemenko didn't tell you is that he was not being paid by an oil company. It was a cut-out for Medvedchuk's Channel 112 in Ukraine (since sanctioned).
Read 4 tweets

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