Kaspersky security expert charged with treason for sharing security data with Verisign

Seven-year-old allegations that Kaspersky employee passed on "secrets" to Verisign cyber crime unit

The December arrest of Ruslan Stoyanov, Kaspersky's head of computer incidents investigation, was the result of claims that he passed state secrets to US companies.

His arrest followed accusations made as long ago as 2010 by Russian businessman Pavel Vrublevsky, founder of Russian online payments company ChronoPay, suggesting that Stoyanov and others had passed on "secrets" to US companies, including Verisign's iDefense cyber crime unit.

"I can confirm we (Chronopay) expect to be part of this case. In 2010, we provided the FSB [the Russian security services] and other important Russian agencies with evidence that at least one FSB employee, as well as several other people, were involved in treason," Vrublevsky told Reuters.

Vrublevsky claimed that Stoyanov passed on information to other companies, but only named Verisign.

However, Verisign has denied that it handled or passed-on anything that could be described as secrets. Rather, Verisign's iDefense unit compiled dossiers on cyber crime for clients including private firms and government agencies that include US intelligence services, but it says its research did not contain classified information, according to Reuters.

"Nothing like the arrangement as described by Pavel Vrublevsky ever took place," Kimberly Zenz, a former analyst at Verisign's iDefense unit who knows Stoyanov, told Reuters.

Verisign's denials suggest that the "secrets" that Stoyanov was accused of passing was either information about security flaws in software, or information about groups or individuals involved in cyber-crime. As an independent consultant at the time, Stoyanov would probably have been expected to be paid for his work for Verisign.

Stoyanov joined Kaspersky in 2012 following a period as a consultant after he'd left the Russian police cyber crime unit. However, Kaspersky has refused to comment.

The news suggests that Stoyanov has been caught in the middle of a business dispute between oligarchs or groups within, or around, the Russian establishment. Cyber crime is also big business in Russia, with three-quarters of the world's crypto-ransomware being written by native Russian speakers, according to Kaspersky.

Reuters suggested that the arrests, after the allegations had been ignored for so long, were intended to signal that Russia would no longer cooperate on issues of computer security following claims that Russia had interfered with the US elections.

Its source also suggested that "Russian authorities at times use old cases as a way of charging people suspected of later crimes".