Dmitry Smilyanets
Mission-driven and Russian-speaking intelligence analyst with type A personality. Dmitry has twenty years of experience and expertise in cybercrime activity that includes being a former member of an elite Russian-based hacking organization.
Articles By This Author
What It’s Like to Run a Hacking Forum: A Conversation With RaidForums Owner Omnipotent
For the last five years, RaidForums has made a name for itself for being a constant source of high-profile database leaks. RaidForums was started in 2015 by a user named Omnipotent, who still operates the site. Omnipotent talked with Recorded Future expert threat intelligence analyst Dmitry Smilyanets about why he started RaidForums and what it’s like to operate it….
‘I Was Running Two Parallel Lives’: An Ex-Secret Service Agent Opens Up About Going Undercover To Catch Cybercriminals
Until recently, Richard LaTulip was one of the Secret Service’s special agents who went undercover to better understand cybercriminals. On occasion, he would even befriend hackers. “I opened the door and there on the other side was the target standing with a liter of vodka… a gift from their home country,” he recalled. LaTulip, who left the agency in July to join the private sector, opened up about his experiences at the Secret Service in a recent interview with Recorded Future expert threat intelligence analyst Dmitry Smilyanets. The two first met in 2012, when Smilyanets himself was interviewed by LaTulip in relation to his involvement in a major data breach investigation….
An Interview With Russian Hacker Pavel Sitnikov: ‘There Is No [Hacking] Scene Now, Only Commerce’
Hackers often go to great lengths to be discreet. That’s not the case with Pavel Sitnikov. The long-standing, Russian-speaking hacker until recently posted frequently on Twitter, where he listed his name, his alias (FlatL1ne), and his self-proclaimed connection with the infamous hacking group APT28, or Fancy Bear—his Twitter account is currently suspended…
Ukraine’s Top Cyber Cop on Defending Against Disinformation and Russian Hackers
In recent years, Ukraine has become an involuntary testing ground for some of the most dangerous cyberweapons in the world. Serhii Demediuk has perhaps played the most prominent role in defending Ukraine against digital intrusions, investigating cyberattacks and the groups behind them, and strengthening the country’s capabilities in cyberspace….
‘Be Careful Who You Bite’: An Interview With the Businessman at the Center of One of Russia’s Biggest Treason Scandals
In 2013, Pavel Vrublevsky’s life turned upside down. After ten years of running a successful payments firm called ChronoPay, the Russian internet entrepreneur was convicted of orchestrating a distributed denial-of-service attack against a competing payments system used by Russian airline Aeroflot. Vrublevsky talked extensively with Recorded Future expert threat intelligence analyst Dmitry Smilyanets about this event and others in a recent interview…
An Interview With RedBear: A Hacker Training the Next Generation of Cybercriminals
Editor’s Note: In the interest of exploring the untold stories of cybersecurity, The Record is publishing a recent interview between