Category Archives: FSB

Pentagon’s looming Kaspersky ban viewed as ‘purely political’

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The Department of Defense may ban products from Moscow-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky, yet experts would be surprised if it changes much from an operational standpoint. The ban is receiving criticism from security professionals, who said the move signifies little more than political posturing. “I’d like to call this out as what it is: a purely political move,” Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, told CyberScoop. “This doesn’t need to be in the [Pentagon budget]. If intelligence indicates that Kaspersky is in cahoots with the Russian government, [the Department of Defense] could (and should) ban the use of Kaspersky products by policy.” Eugene Kaspersky, the firm’s CEO and co-founder, offered again on Friday to let the U.S. government audit the company’s source code to prove “we’ve got nothing to hide.” “We want the government, our users and the public to fully understand that having Russian roots does not make us guilty,” he wrote in […]

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Russia’s reliance on cybercriminals has a ‘silver lining,’ says top DOJ lawyer

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A top Justice Department official says there is a “silver lining” in the fact that Russia’s Federal Security Service was reliant on a pair of alleged cybercriminals to hack into Yahoo and collect information. Two contractors with cybercrime connections were among four individuals indicted in March by the Justice Department in a massive data breach that occurred at Yahoo in 2014. The other two were officers from FSB, which is one of Russia’s top intelligence agencies. Such a “blended threat” can create openings for investigators, said Adam Hickey, deputy assistant attorney general for the National Security Division. “It’s an advantage to us because those are individuals that are more willing to travel, they are more likely to be less op-sec savvy in certain respects compared to an intelligence officer and that matters because apprehending them can … give us that human intelligence into the state-sponsored hacking,” Hickey said. “That can be very, very valuable in […]

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The Backstory Behind Carder Kingpin Roman Seleznev’s Record 27 Year Prison Sentence

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Roman Seleznev, a 32-year-old Russian cybercriminal and prolific credit card thief, was sentenced Friday to 27 years in federal prison. That is a record punishment for hacking violations in the United States and by all accounts one designed to send a message to criminal hackers everywhere. But a close review of the case suggests that Seleznev’s record sentence was severe in large part because the evidence against him was substantial and yet he declined to cooperate with prosecutors prior to his trial.

The son of an influential Russian politician, Seleznev made international headlines in 2014 after he was captured while vacationing in The Maldives, a popular vacation spot for Russians and one that many Russian cybercriminals previously considered to be out of reach for western law enforcement agencies. He was whisked away to Guam briefly before being transported to Washington state to stand trial for computer hacking charges. Continue reading The Backstory Behind Carder Kingpin Roman Seleznev’s Record 27 Year Prison Sentence→

The Backstory Behind Carder Kingpin Roman Seleznev’s Record 27 Year Prison Sentence

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Roman Seleznev, a 32-year-old Russian cybercriminal and prolific credit card thief, was sentenced Friday to 27 years in federal prison. That is a record punishment for hacking violations in the United States and by all accounts one designed to send a message to criminal hackers everywhere. But a close review of the case suggests that Seleznev’s record sentence was severe in large part because the evidence against him was substantial and yet he declined to cooperate with prosecutors prior to his trial.

The son of an influential Russian politician, Seleznev made international headlines in 2014 after he was captured while vacationing in The Maldives, a popular vacation spot for Russians and one that many Russian cybercriminals previously considered to be out of reach for western law enforcement agencies. He was whisked away to Guam briefly before being transported to Washington state to stand trial for computer hacking charges. Continue reading The Backstory Behind Carder Kingpin Roman Seleznev’s Record 27 Year Prison Sentence→

Former NSA hackers: Yahoo indictments won’t slow down Russian cyberattacks

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Newly unveiled indictments against a group of hackers working for Russian intelligence will do little to deter future cyberattacks against the U.S., former NSA analysts and government lawyers tell CyberScoop. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s National Security Division pioneered a cybersecurity strategy of deterrence through indictments and criminal prosecutions. Over the last several years, in the aftermath of multiple high-profile data breaches, however, this approach of “naming and shaming” has garnered significant criticism for its lack of clear, deliverable results, experts say. “The [Yahoo] indictment calls into question whether past ‘name and shame’ indictments of international cybercriminals have had any deterrent effect,” said Edward McAndrew, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of Virginia and for the District of Delaware, via email. “Indictments of this type only have deterrent effect if the defendants end up in a US prison — and for longer […]

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Russian agents allegedly hired this cyber-mercenary to hack Google and Yahoo

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Karim Baratov, a 22-year-old Canadian born in Kazakhstan, is one of four alleged hackers named in a federal indictment for helping Russian intelligence officials break into numerous Yahoo and Google email accounts. Unlike the other suspects, however, Baratov appears to have worked as a sort of cyber-mercenary. Charging documents say he received thousands of dollars from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, to compromise targets. Baratov, known cybercriminal Aleksey Belan and FSB agents Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin are accused of breaching Yahoo multiple times between 2014 and late 2016. The suspects allegedly used their access to the platform to enrich themselves and spy on business executives, journalists and foreign government officials. The Justice Department said Wednesday in its indictment that Baratov was consistently paid for his hacking services by Dmitry Dokuchaev, a credit card fraudster turned spy, under the order of his superior, Igor Sushchin, a senior FSB officer who was arrested […]

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FSB Officers, Criminal Hackers Indicted in Yahoo Breach

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The Department of Justice indicted four individuals, including two Russian FSB officers, for their roles in the Yahoo breach. Continue reading FSB Officers, Criminal Hackers Indicted in Yahoo Breach→

FSB Officers, Criminal Hackers Indicted in Yahoo Breach

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The Department of Justice indicted four individuals, including two Russian FSB officers, for their roles in the Yahoo breach. Continue reading FSB Officers, Criminal Hackers Indicted in Yahoo Breach→

Experts warn Congress of ongoing Russian information warfare against Europe

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Russian intelligence forces are currently involved in an online disinformation campaign to undermine several crucial European elections, former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves told lawmakers during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Thursday. IIves was one of four experts who spoke Thursday on Capitol Hill about Russian hacking and propaganda efforts designed to undermine The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union. IIves was president of between 2006 and 2016, during a period in which Russian hackers launched a massive distributed denial of service-style attack on the country’s government agencies and private sector. “I would argue this will be the main battlefield over the next year,” IIves. “There are a number of key elections coming up among major countries … [and] in all cases we’ve seen significant meddling. The Dutch are so afraid they’ve decided to go back to paper balloting because of what might happen.” Lawmakers in Washington have […]

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A Shakeup in Russia’s Top Cybercrime Unit

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A chief criticism I heard from readers of my book, Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime, was that it dealt primarily with petty crooks involved in petty crimes, while ignoring more substantive security issues like government surveillance and cyber war. But now it appears that the chief antagonist of Spam Nation is at the dead center of an international scandal involving the hacking of U.S. state electoral boards in Arizona and Illinois, the sacking of Russia’s top cybercrime investigators, and the slow but steady leak of unflattering data on some of Russia’s most powerful politicians. Continue reading A Shakeup in Russia’s Top Cybercrime Unit→