Russia Behind Massive Hacking Of Yahoo Accounts, Justice Department To Announce
The Department of Justice will announce formal charges on Wednesday against hackers closely tied to Russian intelligence for the hacking of about 500 million Yahoo accounts, the Washington Post is reporting.
“The indictments target two members of the Russian intelligence agency FSB, and two hackers hired by the Russians,” the Post reported.
The Justice Department charges will include hacking, wire fraud, economic espionage and trade secret theft and will be the largest hacking case every brought by the U.S. government.
The Washington Post noted that, “The charges are unrelated to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. But the move reflects the U.S. government’s increasing desire to hold foreign governments accountable for malicious acts in cyberspace.”
In 2016, Yahoo announced the hacking of 500 million accounts in 2014. A few months later Yahoo disclosed a second hack impacting 1 billion accounts. It is yet unclear whether the two hack are related.
Russian intelligence behind hacking of 500 million Yahoo accounts
The Washington Post report noted that “In the 2014 hack, the FSB — Russia’s Federal Security Service, and a successor to the KGB — sought the information for intelligence purposes, targeting journalists, dissidents and U.S. government officials, but allowed the criminal hackers to use the email cache for the officials’ and the hackers’ financial gain, through spamming and other operations.”
The Russian intelligence officers being indicted are Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin who are both senior officials in the Russian FSB’s equivalent of the cyber division.
The Post report went on to identify another man who is being indicted in the case, Alexsey Belan. Belan “is on the list of most-wanted cyber criminals and has been charged twice before, in connection with intrusions into three major tech firms in Nevada and California in 2012 and 2013,” the Post noted.
Belan is being protected by Russian authorities.
You can read the full Washington Post report here.
