Draper Younce, owner of Tesla’s car, says his Tesla is a big reason why he survived an attempted car theft.
RENO, Nevada – A Russian man pleaded guilty in the U.S. for offering a Tesla employee $ 1 million to paralyze the Nevada electric car company’s huge battery factory with ransomware and steal company secrets for extortion, prosecutors said and court records.
In a case that cybersecurity experts considered exceptional for the risks he took, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov pleaded guilty Thursday at the United States District Court in Reno. His court-appointed federal public defender, Chris Frey, declined to comment on Friday.
Prosecutors claimed that Kriuchkov acted on behalf of overseas co-conspirators and tried to use bribes face-to-face to recruit an insider to physically plant ransomware, which scrambles data on targeted networks and can only be unlocked with a software key provided by the attackers. Typically, ransomware gangs operating in secure harbors invade victims’ networks over the Internet and download data before activating the ransomware.
TESLA AMONG HACK VICTIMS EXPOSING MORE THAN 150,000 SECURITY CAMERAS
“The fact that such a risk was taken could perhaps suggest that it was an intelligence operation aimed at obtaining information, rather than an extortion operation aimed at obtaining money,” said Brett Callow, an analyst at cybersecurity from antivirus software company Emsisoft.
“It is also possible that criminals thought the bet was worth it and decided to roll the dice,” said Callow.
Charles Carmakal, technical director of cyber security firm FireEye, agrees. “You could have potentially done this thousands of miles away without risking any assets,” he said.
The FBI said the unidentified recruit candidate informed Tesla and cooperated with the FBI, and the conspiracy was stopped before any damage occurred.
‘MALICIOUSLY SABOTAGE’ COMPANY OF EX-TESLA EMPLOYEES
Kriuchkov, 27, told a judge in September that he knew the Russian government was aware of his case. But prosecutors and the FBI did not claim links to the Kremlin. Kriuchkov is in federal custody at Washoe County Prison in Reno.
His plea of guilt for conspiracy to intentionally damage a protected computer could have resulted in up to five years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. But he must face no more than 10 months under the terms of his written plea agreement.
He has been in custody for seven months since his arrest in August in Los Angeles. Federal officials said he was going to an airport to fly out of the country.
“The quick response from the company and the FBI prevented a large exfiltration of the victim’s company data and interrupted the extortion scheme at the beginning,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicholas McQuaid in a statement. “This case highlights the importance of companies engaging in law enforcement and the positive results when they do.”
DISCOVER FOX BUSINESS IN MOVEMENT BY CLICKING HERE
Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged that his company was the target of what he called a serious effort to collect company secrets. Tesla has a huge factory near Reno that makes batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage units. Company representatives did not immediately respond to messages on Friday.
Reserve photo of Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, who pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday, March 18, 2021, to a conspiracy charge, admitting that he offered a Tesla employee $ 1 million to shut down the company’s factory of electric cars in Nevada with ransomware (Photo AP – John Locher / Washoe County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
Court documents say Kriuchkov was in the United States for more than five weeks in July and August with a Russian passport and tourist visa when he tried to recruit an employee from what was identified as “Company A” to install software that would allow hacking a computer.
The employee, who has not been identified, should receive payments in the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
No other suspected co-conspirators were charged in the case. Some have been identified in a criminal complaint by nicknames, including Kisa and Pasha, and one person is identified as Sasha Skarobogatov.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT FOX BUSINESS
Some meetings were monitored and recorded by the FBI, according to court documents. It was not clear from the court records whether the money changed hands.
In court documents, Kriuchkov was quoted as saying that inside work would be disguised as a distributed denial of service attack against the factory’s computers. These attacks overwhelm servers with junk traffic. If Tesla did not pay, the stolen data would be dumped on the open Internet.
The documents also state that Kriuchkov claimed the recruit candidate had carried out similar “special projects” at other companies on several occasions, with a victim allegedly delivering a $ 4 million ransom payment.