Four Russians charged with Yahoo hack

Yesterday, US authorities indicted four Russians for allegedly breaching Yahoo’s network. The cyberattack triggered the first of the two recent major Yahoo data leaks which left over 500 million accounts compromised. The Department of Justice announced computer hacking, economic espionage and trade secret theft charges against Dmitry Dokuchayev, Igor Sushchin, Alexei Belan and Karim Baratov.

According to the Department of Justice, Dokuchayev and Sushchin, Federal Security Service (FSB) officers, directed hackers Belan and Baratov to carry out the attack. The hackers provided the officers with the data required, using the rest of the stolen information for personal gain. The Department of Justice claims that the FSB were mostly interested in compromising materials on prominent American politicians, officials, journalists and financiers. Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord characterized the intrusion initiated by FSB officers responsible, among other things, for cyber security as “beyond the pale.”