The Arrest of Cybersecurity Experts

In December 2016, four prominent figures in Russia's cybersecurity landscape were arrested on charges of treason, igniting intrigue and speculation worldwide. Colonel Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the CIB, and Roslan Stryanov, head of the Cyber Incident Investigations Department at Kaspersky Lab, were taken into custody under mysterious circumstances, without any clear explanations given by the authorities. Their arrests, which included the apprehension of Mikhailov’s deputy and a lesser-known businessman, were based on events from nearly six years prior that had been publicly accessible. This turn of events shed light on the often opaque realm of Russian intelligence and raised questions about internal motives and rivalries among the country's security agencies.