Suspect arrested in Pennsylvania is a Canadian cybersecurity executive who co-founded ransomware negotiation firm CYPFER
Court records name Edward Dubrovsky and list conspiracy and extortion charges in a case that reports link to the ShinyHunters breach of FBI systems.
Evidence: Independent reports. Security stories run only with a named disclosure or independent reporting behind them.
Federal authorities arrested Edward Dubrovsky, a 54-year-old Canadian cybersecurity executive, on Thursday in Pennsylvania. That is according to federal court records posted Friday. Dubrovsky is a former chief operating officer and founder of CYPFER, a firm that helps organizations negotiate with ransomware operators. BleepingComputer, citing Politico and KrebsOnSecurity, reports that he was arrested while attending a cybersecurity conference. The complaint is sealed, but the docket lists conspiracy to threaten the confidentiality of information in order to extort money, which falls under federal computer fraud law, and conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act extortion. He appeared in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. A later court order transferred him to the Eastern District of Texas, where the charges were filed, and says he remains in custody. The FBI has not publicly named him. FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest of "another suspected co-conspirator" of ShinyHunters, and The New York Times reported that the suspect was a Canadian citizen arrested in Pennsylvania. CyberScoop says the case appears to match the investigation into the ShinyHunters attack on FBI IT systems, which exposed personal data about thousands of bureau employees. The arrest stands out because the suspect's career was in helping extortion victims respond to attacks.