US bought digital forensics from the same Russian company that the FSB buys

iGuRu.gr > US bought digital forensics from the same Russian company that the FSB buys

US defense and homeland security agencies purchased digital forensics software developed by the same Russian company that also sold its products to the FSB, according to US prosecutors. fsb

The Department of Justice announced that Oxygen Forensics CEO Lee Reiber and Russian national Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, concealing the company's Russian ownership and where its software was actually developed.

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Virginia-based Oxygen Forensics has sold digital forensics tools to the U.S. Department of Defense and various departments of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Homeland Security Investigations, the DHS Office of Inspector General, and the Secret Service's National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI).

Prosecutors allege that Oxygen presented itself to US authorities as an independent American company, while in reality it was owned and controlled by five Russian nationals through a holding company based in Cyprus.

The same five individuals also owned a Russian company, formerly known as Oxygen Software LLC and now MKO Systems LLC. According to the Justice Department, the programmers who developed the software worked in Russia, and MKO sold the software there under different product names to customers that reportedly included the FSB, the Russian Investigative Committee and the Russian Interior Ministry.

In other words, prosecutors argue that while US agencies were buying Oxygen's tools, software from the same Russian group was also being distributed to entirely different government customers in Russia.

Reiber was arrested in Idaho, while Davydov was located and arrested at London's Heathrow Airport before boarding a flight to Istanbul. The US intends to seek his extradition. Authorities have frozen corporate bank accounts, about 57 domain names and other infrastructure.

The Justice Department does not allege that Oxygen's software contained malicious code or was used to gain unauthorized access to customer systems or data.