Report: Tech company in Steele dossier may have been used by Russian spies

Internet service providers owned by a Russian businessman who appeared in the infamous Steele dossier are regularly used by cybercriminals and hackers tied to Russian intelligence services, The New York Times reports.

In a report unsealed Thursday, a former FBI cyberexpert said there was evidence that Aleksej Gubarev's networks were used by hackers during the 2016 presidential campaign; at least one of the fake links Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, clicked on was traced to an IP address run by a subsidiary of one of Gubarev's companies, the Times reports.

In the Steele dossier — a series of reports on President Trump compiled in 2016 by former British spy Christopher Steele — it said Gubarev's companies used "botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data, and conduct 'altering operations' against the Democratic Party leadership." The dossier's allegations were first reported in January 2017 by BuzzFeed News, and Gubarev filed a defamation lawsuit against the website. The report was commissioned by BuzzFeed in its battle against Gubarev; the case was dismissed in December.

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Gubarev has said he did not knowingly take part in any hacking, and the report does not directly link him to any cyberattacks, although it does conclude that his clients often spread malware and pirate copyrighted material, and Gubarev and his executives do not try to stop them.