4 Charged, Including Russian Government Agents, In Massive Yahoo Hack
Thursday, March 16, 2017
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced yesterday that a grand jury in the Northern District of California has indicted four defendants, including two officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), for computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offenses related to the massive hack of millions of Yahoo webmail accounts. The charges were announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions of the U.S. Department of Justice, Director James Comey of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord of the National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Brian Stretch for the Northern District of California and Executive Assistant Director Paul Abbate of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.
The announcement described how the defendants, beginning in January 2014:
"... unauthorized access to Yahoo’s systems to steal information from about at least 500 million Yahoo accounts and then used some of that stolen information to obtain unauthorized access to the contents of accounts at Yahoo, Google and other webmail providers, including accounts of Russian journalists, U.S. and Russian government officials and private-sector employees of financial, transportation and other companies. One of the defendants also exploited his access to Yahoo’s network for his personal financial gain, by searching Yahoo user communications for credit card and gift card account numbers, redirecting a subset of Yahoo search engine web traffic so he could make commissions and enabling the theft of the contacts of at least 30 million Yahoo accounts to facilitate a spam campaign."
The four defendants are:
- Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev, 33, a Russian national and resident
- Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, 43, a Russian national and resident,
- Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan, aka “Magg,” 29, a Russian national and resident, and
- Karim Baratov (a/k/a "Kay," "Karim Taloverov," and "Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov") 22, a Canadian and Kazakh national and a resident of Canada.
Several lawsuits have resulted from the Yahoo breach including a shareholder lawsuit alleging a breach of fiduciary duty by the directors of the tech company, and a class-action regarding stolen credit card payment information.
Attorney General Sessions said about the charges against four defendants:
"Cyber crime poses a significant threat to our nation’s security and prosperity, and this is one of the largest data breaches in history... But thanks to the tireless efforts of U.S. prosecutors and investigators, as well as our Canadian partners, today we have identified four individuals, including two Russian FSB officers, responsible for unauthorized access to millions of users’ accounts. The United States will vigorously investigate and prosecute the people behind such attacks..."
FBI Director said:
"... we continue to pierce the veil of anonymity surrounding cyber crimes... We are shrinking the world to ensure that cyber criminals think twice before targeting U.S. persons and interests."
Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord said:
"The criminal conduct at issue, carried out and otherwise facilitated by officers from an FSB unit that serves as the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow on cybercrime matters, is beyond the pale... hackers around the world can and will be exposed and held accountable. State actors may be using common criminals to access the data they want..."
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