Kremlin, on US Yahoo hack charges, says its spies not involved

The U.S. Department of Justice said a grand jury in California has indicted Baratov and three others, two of them allegedly officers of the Russian Federal Security Service, for computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offences. The two Russian agents were supposed to be helping Americans hunt for hackers but were instead working against them.

The other hacker-for-hire is Karim Baratov, 22, who was born in Kazakhstan but has Canadian citizenship. They also reportedly accessed accounts belonging to a Russian investigative reporter, a public affairs consultant dealing with Russia’s membership to the World Trade Organization and a Russian Deputy Consul General.

The indictments also target Dmitry Dokuchaev, Igor Sushchin and Alexey Belan who has been charged twice before in connection with cyber intrusions.

The FSB hasn’t commented, and the Justice Department did not confirm that.

Dokuchaev, whose hacker alias was “Forb”, presents a mysterious case. But the move reflects the USA government’s increasing desire to hold foreign governments accountable for malicious acts in cyberspace. Dokuchaev was an officer in the FSB Center for Information Security, known as “Center 18”, which is tasked with investigating hacking and is the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow for cyber crimes.

At a news conference in Washington, Mary B. McCord, acting assistant attorney general, said, “The involvement and direction of F.S.B. officers with law enforcement responsibilities makes this conduct that much more egregious”.

A US intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said employing criminal hackers helps “complement Kremlin intentions and provide plausible deniability for the Russian state”. Federal prosecutors said the hacked data was also used to spy on Russian business executives and government officials. No other tech companies immediately responded to the Department of Justice’s overtures.

Baratov, who has Canadian citizenship, has been arrested in Canada but the likelihood of the U.S. being able to get its hands on the others is remote.

Did “Weak Link” Baratov Help Unravel Case?

“WikiLeaks works with insiders, it works with the Russians”, Lewis said. The Kremlin intelligence officials’ targets included Russian journalists and government officials as well as senior officials of foreign governments and corporations. He is being held in custody, and Virk said he could not say where, or by whom. The FBI says this was a cyber breach directed by Russian intelligence agencies using cyber mercenary and they say the indictment is unprecedented.

Rivalries between these groups mean they are constantly vying for the Kremlin’s favor. It is evidence that cybersecurity experts said they’d like to see but probably won’t, said Adam M. Segal, director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“This was a very large operation”, Pugash said. “We do reach a point where the USA government says we can’t reveal any more info and you’ll have to take our word on it”. Artimovich said he refused the offer, preferring to spend time in prison. “I served one and a half years”. “But you do not have to go it alone”. You can’t have any career growth.

This report includes material from Reuters and the Associated Press.

There was nothing particularly fancy about what the Russian hackers did, said Shuman Ghosemajumder, who used to fight fraud at Google and is now chief technology officer for Shape Security.

The hack began with a spear-phishing email sent in early 2014 to a Yahoo company employee. The hackers even combed through email accounts looking for gift cards a few week after Yahoo announced the breach.

The conspiracy, laid out in an indictment in federal court in San Francisco, reveals the internal workings of Russia’s state cyber-spying regime, implicated in alleged attempts to influence the USA election a year ago.