Kaspersky accused of helping Russia develop military drone systems

If volunteer intelligence gatherers are correct, the US might have a good reason to impose sanctions on Russian infosec firm Kaspersky, which has been accused of helping Russia design drones used in the Ukrainian war.

The findings come from OSINT intelligence seekers at InformNapalm, which sprung up in the wake of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. The data used to determine Kaspersky's involvement comes from a 100 GB trove of data stolen by Cyber Resistance hackers from a Russian company called Albatross, which has been reportedly working with Iranian officials to manufacture a domestic reconnaissance drone. 

Kaspersky's connection to the project dates back to 2018, InformNapalm said, when a group of six individuals formed a company called ALB-search to participate in a competition to develop new search and rescue drone technologies.

While ALB-search didn't win, it did end up turning into one of the cornerstones of Albatross, with two members of the team (Alexey Florov and Konstantin Spiridonov) going on to leadership positions, and another (Nikita Kalmykov) founded the company. 

Another pair of ALB-search members (Vladimir Kleshnin and Vladimir Turov) participated heavily in the development of Albatros' drones, while employed at Kaspersky. Turov even served as the head of Kaspersky's Antidrone platform, which can detect and respond to UAVs in secured airspace.

After the search and rescue contest, the ALB-search team went on to register a patent for locating missing persons using fixed-wing UAVs, with that patent now featuring prominently in Albatross presentations, InformNapalm said.

To make that patent work properly, an onboard neural network had to be developed, and it was reportedly created by the team inside Kaspersky that included Turov and Kleshnin.

How closely the companies worked to develop the drone software is made clear by an Albatross slide deck included in the cache of stolen documents, which paints Albatross's drones as incapable of having ever taken off without Kaspersky's help.

"Kaspersky Lab uses Albatross drones as a carrier for its intelligent systems," the presentation reportedly states. "As part of a partnership with the Russian aircraft manufacturer Albatross, solutions of Kaspersky Neural Networks solutions have already been installed on the Albatross M5 fixed-wing drones and Albatross D1 industrial quadcopters."

Those same drones are now being used to scout out Ukrainian military positions since sanctions have cut Russia off from international supplies of military drones.

According to InformNapalm, Kaspersky has taken steps to ensure its link to Albatross has been unpublicized since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began. The current status of the relationship between the pair is unknown, but InformNapalm said Kaspersky's behavior means it should be subject to US sanctions.

"Kaspersky Lab can still buy equipment, train specialists, and create new products, which will then be used by Russians in an aggressive war against Ukraine," InformNapalm argued. "Therefore, the restrictions imposed on the Russian Federation in the technology sector should have no exceptions, and the Russian company Kaspersky Lab should also be subject to effective sanctions."

When asked for an explanation, Kaspersky denied most of the claims from the report to The Register.

"The recent article is based on multiple false statements, as well as on factual inaccuracies and speculations," Kaspersky told us in an emailed statement, adding that it only had an experimental, non-commercial collaboration with Albatross.

"The pilot project was aimed for humanitarian actions and that was it," Kaspersky said. "The story is also based on alleged leaked emails that are taken out of context presenting disinformation and speculation."

Kaspersky did admit Turov and Kleshnin are its employees, but told us their work with Albatross dated to a period prior to employment at the antivirus maker. Nonetheless, Kaspersky also said it had an Antidrone solutions distribution agreement with Albatross that ended in 2022.

"The unverified opinions about Kaspersky should be taken as nothing more than unsubstantiated, false allegations against a company whose mission has always been to protect against malware regardless of its source," the company told us. "Kaspersky remains committed to the full transparency about its business, products and technologies." ®