Geopolitics has always played a role in prosecuting hackers. But it's getting a lot more complicated, as Kurt Sanger reports. Responding to a U.S. request, a Russian cybersecurity executive has been arrested in Kazakhstan, accused of having hacked Dropbox and Linkedin more than ten years ago. The executive, Nikita Kislitsin, has been hammered by geopolitics in that time. The firm he joined after the alleged hacking, Group IB, has seen its CEO arrested by Russia for treason – probably for getting too close to U.S. cyber investigators. Group IB sold off all its Russian assets and moved to Singapore, while Kislitsin stayed behind, but showed up in Kazakhstan as a result of the Ukraine war broke out. Now both Russia and the U.S. have dueling extradition requests before the Kazakh authorities; Paul Stephan points out that Kazakhstan's tenuous independence from Russia will be tested by the tug of war.
In more hacker geopolitics, Kurt and Justin Sherman examine the hacking of a Russian satellite communication system that served military and civilian users. It's reminiscent of the Viasat hack that complicated Ukrainian communications, and a bunch of unrelated commercial services, when Russia invaded. Kurt explores the law of war issues raised by an attack with multiple impacts. Justin and I consider the claim that the Wagner group carried it out as part of their aborted protest march on Moscow. We end up thinking that the hack makes more sense as the Ukrainians serving up revenge for Viasat at a time when it might complicate Russian's response to the Wagner group. But when hacking meets geopolitics, who really knows?
Paul outlines the legal theory – and antitrust nostalgia – behind the FTC's planned lawsuit targeting Amazon's exploitation of its sales platform. We also ask whether the FTC will file the case in court or before the FTC's own administrative law judge. The latter course may smooth the lawsuit's early steps, but it will also bring to the fore arguments that Lina Khan should recuse herself because she's already expressed a view on the issues to be raised by the lawsuit. I'm not Chairman Khan's biggest fan, but I don't see why her strongly held policy views should lead to recusal; they are, after all, why she was appointed in the first place.
