A young Russian citizen and his allies came within an inch of carrying out a major ransomware attack against Tesla – unaware that their goal had already surrendered.
Last week, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dropped a criminal complaint against a conspirator in a crazy ransomware plot against electric car maker Tesla.
On August 22, the Bureau arrested 27-year-old Russian citizen Pavel Kriuchkov in Los Angeles, who had apparently spent much of his month in the US trying to recruit Tesla staff at the Gigafactory Nevada. site of the firm to collaborate on a terrible “special” project. “
That “special project” came with a lucrative incentive – a $ 500,000 bribe, later increased to $ 1 million. A small advance would be paid into the Bitcoin (BTC) portfolio of employees, installed with a Tor browser to avoid discovery.
In return for the bribe, the employee was asked to assist in the installation of a targeted malware attack against Tesla – a two-pronged plot with a widespread denial of service attack, followed by an exile of sensitive business data.
The plan was to keep Tesla as a ransom under threat of public dumping of the information. Kriuchkov’s collaborators were aiming for a ransom of $ 4 million.
The hitch was that, shortly after Kriuchkov’s first encounter with the employee, who remains anonymous, the Tesla employees had already warned, which the FBI in turn tipped off.
A series of August meetings between Kriuchov and the employee were physically checked and wire-tapped by FBI agents. They gathered intelligence about the operation and other previous exploits, while preparations for the cyber attack were broken out.
One of the collaborators was, according to Kriuchkov’s communication with the employee, a hacker specializing in encryption, who presumably works as a high-level employee of a government bank in Russia.
Kriuchkov himself was self-conscious about the technical aspects of the planned attack, and was apparently paid $ 250,000 for his recruitment efforts.
In one early meeting, Kriuchkov, the employee, and two of the latter’s friends made an excursion to Lake Tahoe, California. Kriuchkov insisted on paying the bills for the group’s expenses, but shrugged off posing in group photos, insisting he could “remember the beauty of the sunset” without a reminder.
On August 21, Kriuchov informed the staff that the attack was delayed until a later date, and that he would leave Nevada the next day. Following his arrest in Los Angeles on August 22, he is now in custody pending trial.
While Tesla is not explicitly mentioned in the FBI’s criminal complaint, Tesla news site Teslarati has confirmed that the company was the target. CEO Elon Musk acknowledged the scheme in a tweet:
Highly appreciated. This was a serious attack.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2020
