Ilya Sachkov, founder of Group-IB, filed six civil claims against the specific penal colony.
Unleashing the Story of Ilya Sachkov, the Cybersecurity Guru Turned Prison Inmate
In a stark twist of events, infamous cybersecurity expert Ilya Sachkov, former co-founder of Group-IB now known as F.A.C.C.T., is currently serving a 14-year sentence in a penal colony in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, for high treason. (RIA Novosti)
Despite this, Sachkov has taken a stand, filing six lawsuits against his incarceration. Here's a snapshot of his complaints:
- A woman’s long visit was denied. Sachkov later dropped this lawsuit, however, due to the visit being voluntarily granted subsequently.
- Isolation for three days due to missing a video training on educational work. Sachkov asserts that there were no announcements calling for the lesson on that day, the guard failed to inform him, and the unit's clocks displayed inconsistent times.
The colony's response was that Sachkov is well-versed in their internal regulations and schedule, and the clocks' condition is regularly monitored by staff. The court did not satisfy the lawsuit in this case. (rbc.group)
Details concerning the requirements for the other four lawsuits are unclear. One of them has been dismissed, while the others remain pending.
Group-IB, the company Sachkov and Dmitry Volkov founded as students at Moscow State Technical University, focused on creating products for protecting intellectual property, preventing cyberattacks, and preventing fraud. Group-IB's business in Russia was sold to the company's top management and Russian shareholders in April 2023, under the new brand F.A.C.C.T. The company now operates only on the international market, with its headquarters in Singapore.
Interestingly, the new owner of F.A.C.C.T. has since renamed the company to F6 Technologies and Media. Sachkov's arrest occurred in September 2021, details of the case materials are classified, and sources on the information security market suggested it could be linked to the arrests of Sergei Mikhailov, the head of the Information Security Center (ISC) of the FSB, and Ruslan Stoyanov, an employee of "Kaspersky Lab," on suspicion of high treason.
Furthermore, rumors linked Sachkov's arrest to cryptolockers – malicious programs encrypting data on victims' computers and demanding a ransom for decryption. The case against Sachkov seems to have emerged after the US shared information about the involvement of Russian hackers in the 2016 US Presidential election interference. (Bloomberg)
In July 2023, Sachkov was sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason. He called the charges "the new Dreyfus affair," maintaining that he was "no traitor, no spy, no betrayer," but an engineer who had "repeatedly proven his loyalty and benefit to the Motherland."
In the realms of policy-and-legislation and general-news, discussions surrounding the continued legal disputes by Ilya Sachkov, the imprisoned cybersecurity guru, are dominant. His complaints, including disagreements over video training sessions and woman's visits, have led to filings against his incarceration, with some lawsuits still pending and others dismissed.
The political landscape, alongside crime-and-justice, is impacted by this ongoing saga, as Sachkov's high-profile case has been connected to broader issues such as cryptolockers and alleged links to Russian hackers involved in the 2016 US Presidential election interference.
