Mikhaylov Sergei

Biography

2006: Requests for sites to remove cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad

In March 2006, Sergey Mikhailov one of the heads of the CIB units sent a Masterhost letter to the hosting provider "" asking them to remove Caricatura.ru and Pravda.ru cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from the sites, which caused protests from Muslims around the world. The main page of the Pravda.ru was then temporarily blocked, and the story received publicity.

2011: An attempt to clarify the data of the reader of the site Roem.ru in the interests of Odnoklassniki

On April 28, 2011, an employee of the FSB Information Security Center (CIB) called 30-year-old journalist Yury Sinodov. Sinodov is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Roem.ru website, which specializes in covering the market of Internet companies and social networks, and an FSB officer asked him to disclose the data of one of the authors of the site, who wrote about the internal conflict in Odnoklassniki.

Sinodov was already approached with such questions in 2007, and this time he decided to demand official confirmation. Soon he received it - in the form of a request with the FSB coat of arms from the address of cybercrime@fsb.ru, signed by the head of one of the divisions of the Central Security Service, Sergei Mikhailov.

Then the Sinodov appealed to the FSB's Own Security Directorate with a request to check whether such attention to the authors of its website is legal. The response of the first deputy of the Operational Department of the CIB A. Lyutikov stated that the request was legitimate and of a reference nature.

The synods did not stop there and asked the same question to the Prosecutor General's Office. The answer was completely unexpected: the inspection established a violation of the law "On operational-search activities" by the employees of the Central Security Service, and the leadership of the Central Security Service has already been indicated about the inadmissibility of violations of the law.

After that, the Synods with a clear conscience posted their correspondence with the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office on the site.

In his opinion, the interest of the FSB is explained by the fact that the officers were most likely used by employees of private companies who wanted to find out where the leak of classified information occurred:

seems to me that the company mentioned in the post (Odnoklassniki) is very interested in the channels for leaking unofficial information about them, while the CIB itself does not need this in Fig. This is not a matter of national importance, this is^[1] problem^[1] itself^[1]

2017: Arrest in high treason case

In January 2017, it became known that the head of the 2nd Directorate of the CIB FSB, Sergei Mikhailov, was arrested on suspicion of receiving money from a foreign organization through the mediation of an employee of a Russian company in the field of information security. The investigation is underway on suspicion of violating Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("High treason"). Read more here.

Officially, the essence of the case is not disclosed. According to various versions, the suspects could "hand over" to the States of server hackers of the US Democratic Party, participate in hacks of mailboxes of Moscow near-political celebrities by the Humpty Dumpty group (the case is being investigated separately and there is no direct connection between cases), or in other stories, for example, sabotage the investigation of the DDoS attack on the Assist payment system (the founder of the Chronopay payment system was found guilty of it Pavel Vrublevsky, he has already served his sentence).

Later it was reported that Dmitry Shalkov oversaw the investigation of the case of Colonel Mikhailov.

2018: No guilty plea

In April 2018, several RBC sources told the publication that businessman Georgy Fomchenkov and ex-employee of the FSB Information Security Center (CIB) Dmitry Dokuchaev partially admitted to transferring information to foreign special services. Two of the four suspects signed pre-trial agreements with the investigation and their cases will be considered in a special order. At the same time, RBC clarified that the ex-head of the 2nd department of the FSB CIB Sergei Mikhailov (Dokuchaev was his deputy) and the former head of the Kaspersky Lab computer incident investigation department Ruslan Stoyanov insist on their innocence. The interlocutor of RBC suggested that the American CIA received information through the former senior cyber threat analyst of the American company iDefense Kimberly Zenz. At the request of lawyer Stoyanov, Zenz gave an affidavit, where she explained that she did not work for intelligence and never paid Stoyanov for information.

A RBC source explained the position of Fomchenkov and Dokuchaev:

They admitted to transferring information to foreign special services in an informal manner, but at the same time insist that they did not realize the criminal nature of what was happening. They claim that in this way they helped fight cybercrime around the world. For example, [the information transmitted was supposed to help] punish those cybercriminals whose actions they knew, but formally did not have the opportunity to do something, since they "did not work in Russia"^[2].

2019

The prosecutor requested 20 years in prison for treason

On February 20, 2019, it became known that the prosecutor demanded the maximum terms for the ex-head of the operational management department of the Center information security FSB , Colonel Sergei Mikhailov, and the former head of the computer incident department Kaspersky Lab of the former head of the computer incident department, Kaspersky LabRuslana Stoyanova who are accused of high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code).

According to Kommersant, the closed trial of them is in the Moscow District Military Court. The investigation believes that Mikhailov disclosed to the FBI the methods and methods of conducting operational-search activities in the case of the founder and general director of Chronopay Pavel Vrublevsky. American authorities consider him a cybercriminal.

Investigators found out that having collected information related to state secrets, Colonel Mikhailov recorded them on a CD, which he handed over to Major Dokuchaev, and he - to Ruslan Stoyanov, an employee of Kaspersky Lab. The latter handed over the disc to Kimberly Zenz, an employee of the American company I-Defense, which protects information and actively cooperates with the FBI.

According to the investigation, the defendants expected to receive $10 million for the transfer of data. However, whether this really happened and whether large amounts of money were found in the detainees is unknown.

The guilt of Mikhailov and Stoyanov has been fully proven, the military prosecutor said in a closed debate and demanded 20 years in prison for them (maximum punishment).

The defense of the accused asked them to acquit. At the end of February 2019, they will speak with the last word. They do not admit guilt in treason.^[3]

Conviction for 22 years of strict regime

On February 26, 2019, the court sentenced former FSB officer Sergei Mikhailov and former Kaspersky Lab employee Ruslan Stoyanov to 22 and 14 years in a strict regime in a treason case. Both persons involved in the case were found guilty of transferring work information to the US special services.

The decision was made by the Moscow District Military Court - the verdict was made by three judges headed by Vladimir Maurin, RBC reports. Mikhailov was also stripped of the rank of colonel of the reserve and the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st degree. Recall that the trial was closed from the press, and the criminal case was classified.

Former FSB officer Sergei Mikhailov and former Kaspersky Lab employee Ruslan Stoyanov (right) received large sentences in the high treason case.

Mikhailov's defender Ruslan Golenkov noted in an interview with the BBC Russian Service that the prosecution demanded 23 years in prison for his client. Stoyanov's lawyer Alexander Gusak said that his client declared himself in the last word a true patriot of Russia, without pleading guilty to treason. Mikhailov also acted, says his lawyer^[4].

Notes