Ukrainian hackers of the team conducted a multi-level CYBINT operation, during which they obtained more than 100 GB of information and closed data of the Russian limited liability company "ALBATROS"
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In the second part, you will learn which heads of the development of neural networks of Kaspersky Lab created an intelligent system, which was carried by the Russian drones “Albatross”. That the close ties and cooperation between Albatross and Kaspersky Lab continue after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. “Albatross” directly used solutions created in cooperation with Kaspersky Lab specialists in the war against Ukraine. In the first part, it was about the “motor boats project”, behind which the production of Russian analogues of Shahed-136 drones (“Geran-2” in the Russian version) is hidden in the territory of the Alabuga SEZ in Tatarstan.
Kaspersky Lab is a Russian company that specializes in the development of software and antivirus applications. In 2017, the US government banned the use of Kaspersky Lab software by federal agencies due to concerns about data leaks for the benefit of Russian intelligence services. However, as of April 2024, Kaspersky Lab still manages to avoid significant international and, in particular, American sanctions, although some countries and organizations have taken measures against the use of this company’s products. These measures were motivated by national security concerns, but were not formalized as official sanctions at the international level. Interestingly, on April 9, 2024, CNN, citing “5 US officials”, reported on the possible blocking of Kaspersky Lab products in the US. Decisions are supposed to be made by the end of this month. Reason for alleged ban: National security concerns.
But it is worth noting that after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, the Western media report on the alleged restrictions of Kaspersky Lab every year, and for some reason precisely in April. However, these announcements have not yet caused real sanctions against Kaspersky Lab, and this company continues to freely use opportunities to promote its technologies.
In most countries of the free world, Kaspersky has not yet officially imposed asset freezes, bans on the sale of certain types of goods, or trading in securities. “Kaspersky Laboratory” and its founder Yevhen, only Ukraine and Poland introduce restrictions of this level for Kaspersky. For example, in the United States, Russian developers are still prohibited from using the product for government officials.
But we believe that sanctions against Kaspersky should be imposed immediately because they threaten the national security of the United States.
From the materials placed at the Albatros dump (AlabugaLeaks), it is clear that the software products of this company are implemented for Russian military technologies in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles.
But here it is worth going back a little in history, in 2018, when 6 enthusiasts decided to take part in the large-scale competition “Odyssey” for the development of new generation search and rescue technologies. At that time, 75 million rubles were announced in the form of grants for the winners of the competition from the “Sistema” charity fund (a division of JSC “Sistema” – one of the largest Russian investment funds).
Among the 130 teams that applied for that competition, one called “ALB-search” is now important. Here is the list of its participants:
Two persons from the specified list were discussed in the first part of the cycle of AlabugaLeaks materials. We will remind that Aleksey Florov and Konstantin Spiridonov are among the key figures in the organization of the production of combat drones in the Alabuga SEZ. Both are heads of “Albatross” LLC.
The captain of the team, Nikita Kalmykov, is one of the founders of “Albatross” and the former general director of the company. Ilya Voronkov is the head of the Geomyr company, where he works side by side with Florov (another company whose affairs he takes care of).
Two of them, Vladimir Kleshnin and Vladimir Turov, did not officially work at Albatross. At the same time, as evidenced by documents obtained by Cyber Resistance hackers and the InformNapalm community, both have never severed ties either with their Odyssey teammates or with Albatross as an enterprise and played (and play) a significant role in its development.
Although “ALB-search” was not able to win the “Odyssey” competition, the participation brought serious success to all participants. The team’s idea was that a drone with a camera and ultra-sensitive microphones should also be equipped with an on-board computer with a trained neural network. Photos or sounds that the board captures during the flight are immediately analyzed by a neural network. If it determines the signs of a person, then a picture of the area and coordinates are sent to the base station for further evaluation.
At the time of the competition, “Albatross” had two types of UAVs of its own development: a copter and a wing. But it didn’t have a trained neural network running on board. The invited specialists, Turov and Kleshnin, had to solve several tasks: set up the hardware part and stable data transmission, and organize the training of the neural network. Payment for work was carried out officially according to acts.
According to the results of “Odyssey”, five of the 6 members of the team registered a patent, which is called: “Airplane-type unmanned aerial vehicle for detecting a person who has disappeared”. Now this patent is one of the elements of Albatross presentations to potential customers.
It should be noted that the image above is an exaggeration. This refers to the phrase “proprietary technology”. The next slide from the same presentation looks much more true to the Albatross:
“Kaspersky Laboratory uses drones of the Albatros company as a carrier for its intelligent systems… Within the framework of the partnership with the Russian aircraft manufacturer Albatros, Kaspersky Neural Networks solutions have already been installed on the Albatros M5 drone and Albatros D1 industrial quadcopters,” says the slide closed presentation. You can download the full preview presentation, which was made available thanks to AlabugaLeaks, at the link (*.pptx, 139 MB).
So from the slides we learn that the Albatross drones are carriers of Kaspersky Lab’s intelligent systems. Now let’s tell how it happened.
The AlabugaLeaks dataset on Albatross activities allows you to trace the development history of a particular product of the company. That is why Kleshnin and Turov took part in the Odyssey competition and were fascinated by the creation of intelligent systems based on drones. Turov’s resume indicated that since 2018 he has been working at Kaspersky Lab as the head of the Antidrone project (creation of systems for protecting unmanned aerial vehicles). Cooperation with “Albatross” is not his main activity.
It is not yet clear whether this was Turov, who worked with Kleshnin at Kaspersky Lab and met him in the Albatross project, or something else happened. But the fact is that since 2020/1, Kleshnin began to respond to Kaspersky Lab’s corporate mail. “Albatross” itself does not stand aside and becomes a partner of this company. “Kaspersky Laboratory”, for example, purchases Western equipment through the then little-known LLC “Albatross”.
Kaspersky Lab is creating a separate area called Kaspersky Neural Network. And “Albatross” is its significant component. The parties jointly advertise the product in the press. Also, the flagship drone “Albatross M5” can be seen in the presentation materials of Kaspersky Lab itself. Full presentation at the link (*PDF)
After all, the cooperation and the fact that it is about Kaspersky’s neural network are directly stated on the company’s website.
A drone with a neural network is not the only project in which Kaspersky cooperates with Albatross. There is a second brainchild of Turov and Kleshnin, where “Albatross” also plays an important role. It is called Kaspersky Antidrone. These are anti-drone security systems aimed at industrial consumers. This is a complex of radars and video equipment that records the flights of drones in a certain area. At the heart of everything is again a neural network. If the drone flies to a certain place, the system is able to intercept its control and return it to the departure point. The Russian edition of Forbes wrote about the great financial success of the project in March 2023.
Kaspersky Lab hides most of the customers of the Antidrone system. This is explained by the fact that “the story is quite delicate now” (after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine – ed.). However, Cyber Resistance and InformNapalm have a partial list of such objects. Among them are ChTPZ (a plant in Chelyabinsk that produced pipes for the Nord Stream gas pipeline), Nornickel (one of the largest metallurgical plants in the Russian Federation), Mozyrsky Refinery (an oil refinery in Belarus).
All this data is obtained from the leak of “Albatross” (AlabugaLeaks), because the company performs the role of “integrator” during system sales. This means purchasing the necessary equipment (as in the case of the OPAL lidar already shown), help with documentation, training staff to work with the system, etc. How it works is demonstrated below on the example of the contract with the Mozyr Refinery.
If you pay attention to the date of the letter – March 14, 2023 – then the events take place a year after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine and 2 months after the transfer of Albatros production to Yelabuga. At that time, there were already reports in the mass media about the Kremlin’s plans for the production of “Shakhed” analogues in Tatarstan. Now the role of “Albatross” in this is clearly known. However, at least there is no statement from Kaspersky Lab about the break in cooperation with its long-term partner.
There is also a noticeable detail that should be emphasized. After the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, Kaspersky Lab stopped advertising its participation in the development of the Albatros M5 drone. Instead, the promotion of the Antidrone system, where the participation of “Albatross” is not so visible, has increased.
In 2019, the “Albatross” team took care not only of participation in the “Odyssey” competition and new technologies for finding lost people. In October of that year, the chief engineer of the company, Spiridonov, created a document entitled “On the correction of artillery”.
It follows from the document that in order to convert a UAV into an artillery adjuster, it is first necessary to master the technology of neural networks.
As already described, in the same year, Kaspersky Lab developers helped the “albatross” with the development of both hardware and software solutions related to neural networks. “Albatross M5” became the carrier of the technology. The matter was small: to teach the neural network.
And they succeeded. The presentation of the combat version of the “Albatross M5” UAV received by Cyber Resistance hackers testifies to its active use on the battlefield in Ukraine. And also about the active use of the neural network in the process.
“We have a simple and clear mission – we build a safe world”, – with these loud words of Yevhen Kaspersky, the history of the company is published on the website of “Kaspersky Laboratories”.
Most people know it exclusively as the developer of the antivirus of the same name, but at the moment the company goes beyond antivirus products. Officially, all Kaspersky products are created exclusively for private use.” “Company employees will repeat this, even if it is not about this (perhaps to further avoid sanctions). There is no Kaspersky Lab logo on the military version of the Albatross m5, unlike the “rescue of agriculture” version. But in fact, we are talking about the same drones and opportunities provided by the technological flow of “Kaspersky Laboratory”, both in civil and military fields.
Therefore, the company “Albatross” uses drones of its own production in the war with Ukraine in the Russian Federation no later than 2022-9 years. Among the key elements of the combat use of the Albatros M5UAV drone is a neural network that analyzes objects and targets installed on the drone. The 2 developers of the Albatros neural network are also employees of Kaspersky Lab, where they participate in the Antidrone project. The official partner of Kaspersky in the development of neural networks and anti-drone systems is Albatross. full-scale war has been going on for more than two years; “Albatross” itself recently moved production to Yelabuga, where it participates in the assembly of Russian analogues of Shahed-136 kamikaze drones – there is no information about the break in cooperation between “Kaspersky Laboratory” and “Albatross”. And against the Russian technological flagship Kaspersky, effective Western sanctions have not yet been applied. Therefore, “Kaspersky Laboratory” buys equipment, trains specialists, creates new products, and these products are used by hackers in an active war with Ukraine. Thus, there are no exceptions to the restrictions imposed on the Russian Federation in the field of technology, and the Russian company Kaspersky Lab should also be subject to effective sanctions.
Read the continuation of this article in the third part.
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