Software installed at investment bank Dragon Capital and other companies searched by the Security Service of Ukraine on April 26 is unlikely to be used by Russian intelligence agencies, information technology experts told the Kyiv Post.
The state law enforcement agency, known as the SBU, on April 26 searched eight companies, including Dragon Capital and Ukrgazvydobuvannya. Specifically, it was looking for Russian-produced Stakhanovets and Mirobase software.
Stakhanovets and Mirobase are used by employers to monitor the computer and internet activity of their staff. If employees are not notified about the use of such software, it could constitute a violation of their privacy.
The SBU said that Stakhanovets had been banned by Ukrainian authorities in 2016. Dragon Capital said, however, that it had officially and legally bought this software in 2015.
Alleged spyware
“As part of a criminal case, the SBU has found documents confirming that the developer of this software cooperates with Russia’s Federal Security Service,” Oleksandr Tkachuk, chief of staff for SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak, said on April 27.
He said that the FSB could have obtained data from Ukraine through Stakhanovets. About 300 companies are currently using such software in Ukraine, Tkachuk added.
Stakhanovets CEO Nikita Rogozin denied that the company’s software could be used by intelligence agencies for spying. He said there was no technical way for the company to leak data elsewhere.
“We have worked in information security for more than eight years,” he said on April 27. “Some 5,000 clients trust us all over the world. We have ne ver experienced any information leaks.”
Sean Townsend, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance hacker group, said he doubted that Stakhanovets could be used by the FSB for spying.
“The FSB or GRU (Russian military intelligence) would not use Stakhanovets for spying,” he said. “It’s very unlikely. We know the methods used by FSB and they don’t need any Stakhanovets for this.”
He also said that “it’s definitely too much to crack down on businesses that use this program,”
“Stakhanovets has existed for a long time,” Townsend argued. “The SBU has known about its existence but the agency has never been interested in this software before.”
Moreover, the use of Stakhanovets for spying is also unlikely because any data leaks can be easily tracked down.
IT expert Volodymyr Flyonts, who participated in the development of the ProZorro electronic procurement system, said that companies using Stakhanovets would be able to find out if some of their data had been stolen by the software developer.
“In serious companies like Dragon Capital all the external traffic (from the company) is being monitored so they would find out about this,” Flyonts said. “This would destroy the software developer. And this (Stakhanovets) is not some student’s job. This is a public company that produces software and makes a living out of that.”
Accounting software
The SBU also targeted 1S accounting software, which is used by numerous businesses around Ukraine. Eurosoftprom, which distributes 1S software in Ukraine, was also searched.
Tkachuk said that technical support for 1S software had been carried out from Russia and accused Eurosoftprom of supplying the software to Russian-occupied territories in the Donbas. The SBU is investigating the company on suspicion of spyware use.
The SBU also said that some S1 software distributors had been banned from selling it.
Eurosoftprom’s representatives said on April 28 that they did not know if any S1 software had been supplied to the occupied territories. However, there is no ban on supplies of such software to businesses that operated under Ukrainian law in Russian-occupied areas, the company said.
Eurosoftprom also said that the SBU had not found any Stakhanovets or Mirobase software in its offices.
Meanwhile, Townsend argued that labeling the well-known 1S software as “spyware” was nonsense.
Political motive?
Dragon Capital CEO Tomas Fiala said on April 26 the searches could be an effort to pressure the bank in its corporate conflict over Kyiv’s Sky Mall with Oleksandr Hranovsky, a top ally of President Petro Poroshenko, and his business partner Andriy Adamovsky. Hranovsky and Adamovsky are accused of illegally seizing the mall, which used to be co-owned by Dragon Capital, and deny the accusations.
Pavlo Demchyna, a deputy chief of the SBU, is an associate of Hranovsky and Poroshenko’s grey cardinal Ihor Kononenko. Fiala has been a vocal critic of Poroshenko, Kononenko and Hranovsky and has invested in Novoye Vremya, a magazine critical of the authorities.
