Canadian cybersecurity executive arrested by FBI was in legal battle with former business partner

A few months before Edward Dubrovsky was arrested by the FBI, the Canadian cybersecurity executive alleged in court documents that he had become collateral damage in a campaign by a former business partner to “destroy” another industry executive.

The alleged campaign included threats to have the third executive imprisoned in the United States by making false statements to law enforcement or border authorities, and threats to burn down his house with his wife and children inside.

Last week, FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that agents had arrested a suspected co-conspirator of the ShinyHunters group, a hacking collective that has perpetuated dozens of data breaches since 2019, including a hack of an FBI database this year in which the group obtained a massive trove of sensitive information about the bureau’s employees.

Reuters, citing a confidential source, identified the individual who was arrested as Mr. Dubrovsky, a well-recognized cybersecurity expert in Canada who has helped numerous clients recover after data breaches.

Court documents from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania show that Mr. Dubrovsky has been charged and list two criminal complaints: conspiracy to threaten to impair the confidentiality of information with the intent to extort money, and interference with commerce by threats.

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Before the arrest, a messy leadership dispute was playing out at Cypfer, one of the cybersecurity firms where Mr. Dubrovsky built his reputation, and he was tangled in litigation with a former business partner.

Mr. Dubrovsky filed a lawsuit in Ontario in January against Daniel Tobok, the former chief executive of Cypfer, a cybersecurity company founded in Toronto with offices in the U.S., Britain, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico. Court documents variously list Mr. Tobok as a resident of Ontario, the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.

The pair first got into business in 2017 and later developed Cypfer, where Mr. Dubrovsky was a managing partner and chief operating officer. Mr. Dubrovksy said in court that he and Mr. Tobok did not have a written contract because he trusted his partner.

Cypfer employs about 200 people and generates US$50-million in annual revenue, according to court documents.

The two men began falling out in mid-2024, when Mr. Tobok started excluding Mr. Dubrovsky from decisions and later stopped sharing information, according to court documents. Mr. Dubrovsky said in his statement of claim that whenever he disagreed with his partner’s “increasingly capricious business decisions, Mr. Tobok would react explosively” and berate him.

He said Mr. Tobok stripped him of his titles in November, 2025, amounting to a constructive dismissal. In the lawsuit, he claims Mr. Tobok is refusing to transfer a 25 per cent stake in Cypfer held in trust and has not paid his $500,000 salary for 2025.

Mr. Tobok denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim, accusing Mr. Dubrovsky of accessing confidential information and unfairly competing with Cypfer through work at another firm called CyberSteward Inc. He also said that Mr. Dubrovsky left the company to work with CyberSteward, has misrepresented himself as a Cypfer founder and is not a shareholder.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The Globe and Mail was unable to reach Mr. Dubrovsky. Robert Trenker, a lawyer with Adair Goldblatt Bieber LLP in Toronto who is representing him in the litigation, declined to comment, including on the whereabouts of his client.

U.S. federal prison and court records show that a 54-year-old man named Edward Dubrovsky was detained in Philadelphia and appeared in U.S. court last week. Any connection between Mr. Dubrovsky and ShinyHunters is not detailed in the publicly available documents.

A lawyer for Mr. Tobok declined to comment, while Mr. Tobok did not respond to messages sent through LinkedIn and his personal website, or by phone.

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A spokesperson for Cypfer said the company had no advance knowledge of Mr. Dubrovsky’s arrest and is not aware of the conduct underlying the charges, adding that he was hired as a consultant in 2022 and left in 2025.

Law enforcement has not been in touch, nor is the company aware of any investigation concerning its business, the spokesperson said, while declining to comment on the Ontario litigation.

In that court proceeding, Mr. Dubrovsky alleged that claims he misappropriated confidential information from Cypfer to use at CyberSteward are not only false, but are a means to damage another executive named Jason Kotler, who founded CyberSteward. “Mr. Tobok has now drawn Mr. Dubrovsky into that campaign” against Mr. Kotler, according to a court document from July.

Mr. Kotler, who has worked on behalf of clients to negotiate ransom payments with hackers during data breaches, formed a partnership with the other two men in 2020, he said in a court document. Mr. Tobok would bring in business, Mr. Dubrovsky would manage clients and cases, while Mr. Kotler would handle day-to-day operations and oversee responses to cyber breaches, including ransomware negotiations.

Mr. Kotler said in a counterclaim against Mr. Tobok that he founded the original Cypfer in 2020 and “single-handedly” built the business while working at a significantly reduced salary. In 2021, Mr. Tobok proposed leveraging the brand name to expand globally and offer a broader range of cybersecurity services. Mr. Kotler’s ransomware negotiations and payment facilitations, however, were to be handled by a separate legal entity. The new venture under the Cypfer name officially launched in 2022.

Mr. Tobok began “aggressively attempting to assert control” and “sought to rewrite Cypfer’s origin story to build it in his name and reputation alone,” according to Mr. Kotler. He said he was pressured to reassign Cypfer trademarks to a different corporate entity for $100 and was “forced” to rename his original Cypfer corporation to CyberSteward in 2024.

Ryder Gilliland, a lawyer with DMG Advocates LLP who represents Mr. Kotler, declined to comment.

Mr. Kotler said in court documents that Mr. Tobok used “explicit threats” to compel him to comply with business decisions and began a campaign to “put Kotler out of business entirely.”

According to Mr. Kotler, there was an implied agreement that the global Cypfer venture would not offer services to communicate and negotiate with hackers, which would compete with his original business, now called CyberSteward.

Mr. Tobok, however, proposed to Mr. Dubrovsky that they form a new entity that would handle communications and negotiations with hackers and cut out Mr. Kotler, he said in court documents, though Mr. Dubrovsky declined.

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Cypfer started offering threat actor communication services around January, 2026, Mr. Kotler said in a legal filing. (Cypfer said in the statement that while it does communicate with threat actors during cyberattacks, it does not negotiate ransoms or facilitate payments. If payments are requested, the company will work with partner organizations.)

Mr. Tobok’s strategy with Cypfer was allegedly part of an effort on his part to “destroy” Mr. Kotler’s business, CyberSteward, according to legal filings by Mr. Kotler and Mr. Dubrovsky. Mr. Tobok allegedly threatened that he would have Mr. Kotler arrested in Canada on false grounds, imprisoned in the U.S. and have his house burned down.

“Next time he passes the U.S. they’re going to arrest him” and throw him in jail for two weeks, he allegedly told Mr. Dubrovsky in December, 2025, according to a court document from Mr. Dubrovsky filed in July.

He allegedly continued making profanity-laced threats a few days later, including to burn down Mr. Kotler’s house with kids and wife inside, according to the same court document. “I have a very particular way,” Mr. Tobok allegedly told Mr. Dubrovsky.

Mr. Tobok recently left Cypfer. In announcing a leadership transition on Tuesday, the company said in a news release that Mr. Tobok no longer holds any executive or board roles following the sale of Cypfer in August to a holding company called Apros Group, which is led by Jason Hogg.

Mr. Hogg, a cybersecurity professional and former FBI special agent, has been the executive chairman at Cypfer since 2025. The company said in the release that in this role, “he held no internal management responsibility and operated remotely.”