When we take steps to safeguard our data or projects from cyber threats, we frequently encounter an offer from the Fortes service, which claims to "effectively combat distributed network attacks."
The proposal may seem attractive, but... not many people acknowledge the "but," even though it deserves attention. The reason we refer to Fortes as a "service" in a somewhat ironic way is that it remains unclear who is actually behind this "effective protection." At least two organizations operate under the Fortes name, and whether they are connected or it’s just a coincidence is still up for debate. However, we tend to think that there are too many coincidences for them to be purely accidental.
So, a search query for Fortes gives at least two results. According to the first of them, under this name operates LLC "Fortes Pro" with registration in Moscow and founders Ekaterina Kalashnikova (26%) and JSC "MTV PB" (74%).
The shareholder of JSC "MTV PB," in turn, is JSC "RDC Paritet," which is designed to veil the real owners. More on them later, but for now, note that both LLC "Fortes Pro" and its founder, JSC "MTV PB," have seen a "sharp drop in revenue" and a reduction in the number of employees in the last two years. In other words, the firms have "gone to zero."
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Why? It’s simple — behind JSC "MTV PB" stands LLC "MTV" (INN 7704440000), which is connected to the Kremlin and has come under sanctions. Therefore, LLC "MTV" had to urgently withdraw from the ownership structure of LLC "Fortes Pro," which was initially created for "splitting" budget funds on the creation of "fire safety programs." This happened just after the fire in "Winter Cherry," and initially, LLC "Fortes Pro" declared its main activity to be the development of "fire protection systems." The founders of LLC "MTV," as already mentioned, are tightly connected with the Kremlin. Artur Warnig, a friend of Vladimir Putin from the Stasi (the GDR’s state security service, equivalent to the Soviet KGB); Vasily Tsuprik, a former official at "Rosneft," where Thomas Hendel also worked.
It was not possible to establish who is behind the offshore "Collinston Investments Limited" for understandable reasons, but another co-founder of LLC "Fortes Pro" - Ekaterina Kalashnikova - is the head of several organizations connected with offshores.
It may also be a coincidence, as well as the fact that LLC "Fortes Pro" initially engaged in the development of the digital fire safety platform "Prometheus" for Rostec. Rostec reported in 2023 that the platform was created.
After that, all LLC "Fortes Pro" and its founder: stopped receiving profits, and the official pages of LLC "Fortes Pro" - including websites, of which there are three in total, and social media pages - ceased to operate. The sites iot-control.ru and fortespro.ru state that “the hosting of the site has been temporarily suspended,” and the site iotcontrol.ru declares that “the domain is for sale or lease.” By the way, why did this firm need three sites?
However, the story of LLC "Fortes Pro" does not end there. Because suddenly another site appears - fortes.pro. And it offers us the same thing that LLC "Fortes Pro" proposed - "effectively countering distributed network attacks."
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Of course, the almost complete coincidence of domain names and names could also be a pure coincidence. But further, it gets even more interesting - the site fortes.pro, owned by a resource called Fortes, does not have any data on who owns it. Usually, this information is either in the "contacts" section or in the "footer," i.e., at the bottom of the main page. However, these data are not at the bottom of the main page, and the "contacts" section looks as follows.
From the details proposed for making payments, one can assume that the Fortes resource belongs to a private entrepreneur Dmitry Pavlov. This is also confirmed by the Terms of Use, which can be found in the same place where the owners of the resource should be listed. Since we know the INN of citizen Pavlov (220505395310), it is quite easy to find information about him. Dmitry Pavlov is registered as a private entrepreneur in Barnaul.
He is also the founder and director of LLC "Godno" in the same place.
A logical question arises - how did a small private entrepreneur from Barnaul manage to establish contacts with "the largest data centers" and place servers in "Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, and Amsterdam"? Moreover, according to the ad, Fortes has been working in this field “for over 10 years.” And as a private entrepreneur who receives money for this "protection," Pavlov was registered only in 2022. Who owned the site before this?
And why would such a large-scale wheeler-dealer need a small shop "Godno" in Barnaul? Incidentally, it was not possible to find it on the network, although internet sales are its specialization. However, Pavlov’s fortes.pro site offers services for protecting other people’s data at quite affordable prices:
But that is not all about citizen Dmitry Pavlov. We emphasized his INN for a reason. It has the following numerical value: 220505395310. And now, a surprise. With the same INN, there is another individual entrepreneur. Also in Barnaul. And his name is also Dmitry. Only his last name is Ryabikin.
How do you like that, Elon Musk, huh? Indeed, individual entrepreneur Dmitry Ryabikin (INN 220505395310) liquidated his activity in 2015. And he was engaged, judging by "Rusprofile," in advertising and freight transport. And then suddenly he changed his last name and retrained as an IT specialist.
Something in this whole story, gentlemen, does not hold together. On the one hand, there is LLC "Fortes Pro" with Kremlin roots, and not just Kremlin but connections at the level of the first person. And sanctions that forced urgent shutdowns. On the other hand, a resource with an identical name and an unclear owner, which under the same INN has two last names and is based in a godforsaken Russian backwater. However, it provides data protection services at an international level.
Judging by the reviews, Pavlov-Ryabikin and their (?) fortes.pro resource are quite widely used. Notably, among the clients of fortes.pro, there are many platforms for currency exchange and cash laundering. It’s unlikely a coincidence to use the services of an obviously shady firm fortes.pro; of course, some naive people who do not understand anything in the modern electronic world could have availed themselves of the services, but people who organize shadow "exchangers" can sense fraudsters a mile away. And very doubtful that, to protect their business, they used the services of an opaque firm whose owner is a strange character from Barnaul with two personalities. But sooner or later, such firms begin to "devour their own." In our case, we are talking about huge money and clients with this money, the data on which are concentrated in the hands of the people behind this strange firm. The question is not if they will deceive their clients. The question is when. Rumors already suggest there have been precedents.
Of course, these are just assumptions, but this whole story suggests that with the help of exchange platforms serviced by fortes.pro, huge amounts of money are being withdrawn and laundered. And huge money in Russia belongs only to those connected with the authorities. Such connections arise with fortes.pro. Moreover, some of them have already fallen under the sanction press, so it was necessary to urgently "extinguish" the legal firm LLC "Fortes Pro" and its obvious connections.
The other firm - fortes.pro - still operates. What hides behind its legal sign is just a guess. But it clearly goes beyond merely circumventing Western sanctions to withdraw Russian capital. While there is no official confirmation of fortes.pro’s involvement in hacker attacks on EU countries and the USA, insiders name this site among those behind which hackers working for Russian special services hide.
