Tesla and the FBI worked together to prevent a group of ransomware hackers from attacking Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada, according to a complaint from the FBI. The documents, first reported by Electrek, show that on August 22 the FBI arrested a 27-year-old Russian citizen named Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov in Los Angeles.
According to a complaint shared by the Department of Justice, in July, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov traveled to the US and contacted a Russian speaking, non-US citizen who was working at the Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. After meeting with that individual, Kriuchkov allegedly proposed a deal. He would pay the employee $1 million to deliver malware to computer systems at the Gigafactory. Kriuchkov and his associates allegedly planned to extract data from the network and threaten to make it public if Tesla didn’t pay a ransom.
Kriuchkov met with the employee, who remains anonymous in the complaint, several times in July and, at one of those meetings, offered him money to help introduce ransomware into Tesla’s internal computer system in order to extract company data.
The employee agreed to help but immediately informed Tesla after the meeting. Tesla then informed the FBI.
In August, the FBI launched a sting operation with the employee, asking them to wear a wire and keep meeting with Kriuchkov. The Russian hacker met with the Tesla employee a few more times in August to discuss details of the attack and fees. The FBI learned that Kriuchkov was part of a Russian group responsible for previous cyber attacks in the U.S. The FBI didn’t say what companies were involved.
Kriuchkov and the group he represented eventually agreed to pay the Tesla employee $1 million for the hack job. He was arrested on August 22 in Los Angeles when he was trying to leave the U.S.
