What Does the US-Russia Prisoner Swap Mean for Ongoing Cybercrime?

As geopolitical tensions simmer, Russia, the United States, and other Western nations negotiated a complex exchange that released high-profile prisoners held on controversial grounds as well as notorious, convicted cybercriminals. 

“Anytime in human history when countries have some adversarial relationship, anything that indicates the ability to have diplomatic connection or even backchannel communication between senior leadership is a good thing,” Andrew Borene, executive director for global security at data and intelligence company Flashpoint, tells InformationWeek.  

The cybersecurity community has raised questions about the impact of the exchange as cybercrime out of Russia continues to target businesses and critical infrastructure in the US. At least two convicted cybercriminals -- Roman Seleznev and Vladislav Klyushin -- were among the 24 people involved in the exchange.  

The Exchange 

The recent prisoner swap took more than a year to broker, according to The New York Times. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, are two of the four Americans returned to US soil. Gershkovich was falsely accused of spying for the US and arrested in 2023. Russia accused Whelan of spying, and he had been held in Russia since 2020.  

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On the opposite side of the coin, Seleznev was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 14 years in prison for his involvement in a $50 million cybercrime ring. In 2023, Klyushin was sentenced to nine years in prison for his participation in a $93 million hack-to-trade scheme.  

Authorities arrested Seleznev when he traveled to the Maldives, while Klyushin was nabbed in Switzerland.  

“It is a big deal when not only are we able to extradite them but have them to stand trial and imprison them,” says Eric O'Neill, founder of security services company The Georgetown Group and cybersecurity company NexaSure and former FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence. “We’ve long known in the world of cybersecurity that Russia turns a blind eye or even encourages their cybercriminals to attack the West.” 

A Cybersecurity Perspective 

A prisoner exchange is a political tool that comes with complex moral and ethical questions. “How do you quantify someone's freedom?” O’Neill asks. 

For the families of the prisoners returned, there is no question of the trade’s immeasurable value. From the perspective of the US, there is a responsibility to its citizens involved. “Getting our citizens home is a duty of the United States when they are grabbed for political gain by a what's become a hostile country,” says O'Neill.  

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But from a cybersecurity perspective, the release of cybercriminals is frustrating.  

“There has to be a conversation … about the damage that will be caused by these individuals. These cyber attackers being released and going back to countries where they are absolutely going to be promoted as heroes and put back into business,” James Turgal, VP of global cyber risk and board relations at cybersecurity advisory and services company Optiv, and a 22-year FBI veteran, tells InformationWeek.  

Turgal points out that the US does not have the equivalent of these cybercriminals to receive in a trade. “The US does not condone, nor do we promote US persons or anybody else actually going in and hacking Russian hospitals or Chinese businesses or trying to disrupt their critical infrastructure and their water supply,” he explains. “Yet, those countries sponsor this type of aggressive cyber activity against the US.” 

Continuing Cybercrime  

Whether or not Seleznev and Klyushin return to hacking, cybercrime out of Russia will continue. “Cybercriminals inside of Russa, as long as they're attacking outside of Russia, have safe space in which to operate,” says Borene.  

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It is also possible that their return to Russia could serve as the catalyst for others to follow in their footsteps. “What this does when Putin can say, ‘I've returned two heroes’ -- because they're all heroes when they return -- it encourages more cybercrime,” says O’Neill.  

As the world moves forward through a new cold war, cyberattacks and crime are going to continue playing a role with any enterprise as a potential victim.  

“This involves the whole of society to include businesses in ways that we have not seen [in] state on state competition in the past,” says Borene. “This should serve … as a wake-up call that the C-suite and the boards of directors need to pay attention to not only the cyber risk but also what's happening in the geopolitical picture writ large.”