Hacker wanted by the US and Russia extradited to Moscow

Nikita Kislitsin, the former head of security at Group-IB and its spinoff company F.A.C.C.T., was handed over to Moscow after Kazakh authorities chose to reject the US extradition bid.

Kislitsin, accused of selling stolen data by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), was detained in Kazakhstan on June 22nd, 2023, at the request of Washington. Six days later, a Moscow Court arrested Kislitsin on computer hacking charges in absentia.

The Russian news agency Ria Novosti claims that the Kazakh prosecutor’s office decided to extradite Kislitsin to Russia because allegations in both countries are similar and Kislitsin is a Russian citizen.

US authorities alleged that the Russian national conspired with other individuals to steal and sell user data from a now-defunct social networking service, Formspring.

Meanwhile, F.A.C.C.T. said that Kislitsin was working as a cybersecurity security researcher, going as far as to meet with DoJ employees to inform them about his research work related to underground hacking activities.

Russian authorities allege that in October 2022, Kislitsin, together with accomplices, hacked a business server, copied data from it, and demanded a thousand dollars in crypto in ransom.

Interestingly, the type of the alleged crime and sums of money involved in the Russian allegation mirror, almost identically, the DoJ’s indictment against Kislitsin from 2014.

From 2006 until 2012, Kislitsin was the editor-in-chief of Russia’s “Hacker” magazine, covering information security topics.

In 2013, Kislitsyn joined Group-IB, a cyber security company founded by Ilya Sachkov, who has been jailed for 14 years by a Moscow court on treason charges.