Russian Arrested For Trying To Recruit an Insider and Hack a Nevada Company

The US Department of Justice announced charges today against a Russian citizen who traveled to the US in order to recruit and convince an employee of a Nevada company to install malware on their employer's network in exchange for $1,000,000. From a report: According to court documents unsealed today, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, a 27-year-old Russian, was identified as a member of a larger criminal gang who planned to use the malware to gain access to the company's network, steal sensitive documents, and then extort the victim company for a large ransom payment. To mask the theft of corporate data, Kriuchkov told the employee that other members of his gang would launch DDoS attacks to keep the company's security team distracted.

Kriuchkov and his co-conspirators' plans were, however, upended, when the employee they wanted to recruit reported the incident to the FBI. FBI agents kept Kriuchkov under observation during his stay in the US, and eventually arrested the Russian national on Saturday after they had gathered all the evidence they needed to prosecute.

Re:

[jobslave]

No worries, Trump will let Putin extradite him back so he can be "punished" in their mother country.

Re: Castrate them.

[jobslave]

Shhhh, Johnny, ya hear that? That's the sound of a conservative snowflake.

$1,000,000?

[timeOday]

Austin Powers jokes aside, that is a lot of cash to recruit an insider. It would have been so interesting to have him play along and see what would have happened. I can't imagine he was ever going to get that $1M.

Re:$1,000,000?

[MikeDataLink]

Austin Powers jokes aside, that is a lot of cash to recruit an insider. It would have been so interesting to have him play along and see what would have happened. I can't imagine he was ever going to get that $1M.

Depends. One of two scenarios likely:

1) They would never pay him, or they would pay him a small deposit amount like 10K to do the work, and then never pay the rest.
2) The amount the hackers planned to make was going to be so large that 1M was peanuts.

of course, option 3 is they could just off the guy after he does the deed.

Re:

[jellomizer]

I expect the Nevada company would sell that data to them for $1,000,000 if he just asked.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It seems especially surprising given the...not terribly inspiring...general state of network security. A lot of outfits, including some with actual money, whose day you could really ruin with commodity level malware. The place this guy worked for must have been something comparatively special if offering a million bucks(in person, in a jurisdiction that isn't terribly sympathetic to russian hackers, no less) for an inside job was more attractive than just mounting a phishing campaign; or exploiting one of t

Re:

[Gavrielkay]

There are parts of the state where land is cheap and solar power plentiful. We've got some big data centers that could have the sort of security that would make it easier to bribe an employee than attack the network. And which might also have data juicy enough to be worth it.

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

You're probably right. Anyone stupid enough to fall for something like this is probably also stupid enough to give them their bank account number, too.
Or maybe they were going to pay him in cash -- counterfeit cash.
Or maybe give him the account number and access information for an offshore account holding the money -- which disappears before he can transfer it.
Or maybe they were going to take a page from the Criminal 101 Handbook, and just off the guy once he'd done his part, so no 'loose ends' were hang

I hope the guy has protection

[davidwr]

I hope the employee who ratted out the Russian criminals and his family all have police protection.

Either that, or I hope the cruelty of the Russian criminal mobs isn't nearly as bad as it was portrayed in fictional American television *coughLaw&Ordercough* in the 1990s.

Low Key

[JBMcB]

Killing a witness in an FBI case is kicking a hornet's nest. The FBI (and ICE, and federal marshalls, and since it involves a foreign criminal organization, probably the NSA and CIA) would go berserk. If you are a mob boss sitting in Russia, you have to weigh the loss of one underling with the effects of the NSA and CIA poking around all your foreign investments is worth.

Re:

[MikeDataLink]

Killing a witness in an FBI case is kicking a hornet's nest. The FBI (and ICE, and federal marshalls, and since it involves a foreign criminal organization, probably the NSA and CIA) would go berserk. If you are a mob boss sitting in Russia, you have to weigh the loss of one underling with the effects of the NSA and CIA poking around all your foreign investments is worth.

I'd venture to say if they were rational people and made safe decisions they wouldn't be criminals.

Re:

[Nidi62]

Killing a witness in an FBI case is kicking a hornet's nest. The FBI (and ICE, and federal marshalls, and since it involves a foreign criminal organization, probably the NSA and CIA) would go berserk. If you are a mob boss sitting in Russia, you have to weigh the loss of one underling with the effects of the NSA and CIA poking around all your foreign investments is worth.

I'd venture to say if they were rational people and made safe decisions they wouldn't be criminals.

Not necessarily. It's Russia. As long as you are targeting foreign entities such as American companies and not stepping on the toes of the bigger, connected criminal groups, they aren't going to care too much. If the payoff is big enough and the risk of getting caught and actually punished is low enough, then rationally it makes sense.

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

Unless you want to send a message: "When we ask you, play ball, or we might slip some polonium in your martini or worse. The FBI don't scare us".

I hope you don't use TV as a baseline

[wakeboarder]

Comparing TV to reality isn't useful, not even for reality TV.

Well done that guy!

[Bearhouse]

Of course he was probably smart enough to realise he'd never get the cash, and instead be set up as the fall guy, but still the story - if true - should go some way to dispelling the myth that all USAians are unprincipled money grubbers.

Mystery company?

[poptix]

Here are the top 10 companies in Nevada:

MGM Resorts International
Caesars Entertainment
Las Vegas Sands
Johnson Electric
Wynn Resorts
AMERCO
Boyd Gaming
Clark County School District
Wynn Las Vegas
International Game Technology

My guess is International Game Technology, aka IGT -- the makers of a large portion of gambling machines spread throughout the world. That would be the gift that keeps on giving.

Re:

[WindBourne]

Tesla anybody?

Re:

[neoRUR]

Don't Forget Area 51, maybe he worked there.

CHS1 is an Indian

[WindBourne]

What is being missed in all this, is that many of the insiders that Russians go after, are Indian contractors, though historically, in India.
The reason is that India and Russia STILL remain close.

Thankfully, on this one, the person did the right thing. BUT, many others are Russians paying to have backdoors put into place.

Neocon cyber BS from the Microsoft zdnet

[minorityreport]

Neocon cyber BS from the Microsoft zdnet. Sad seeing it turn up on Slashdot.