It is not yet clear how skilled a young man was a skilled hacker. He tried to smuggle the extortion virus into Tesla’s battery factory in Nevada, USA, through an employee he contacted himself.
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For this “maid” he offered him a bribe of one million dollars, ie almost 22 million crowns. The virus served it to him on a gold tray, it was enough to upload it to one of the computers that are connected to the corporate network.
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Although the amount of the bribe was certainly tempting, the employee in question did nothing of the sort. Instead, he turned to the company’s management, then to the FBI. The young Russian soon ended with his handcuffs.
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Although the whole case happened last summer, the Texas court has only begun to consider it now. “The prompt reaction of the company’s employees, as well as the FBI, prevented widespread data theft and halted the extortion plan in its infancy,” the prosecutor’s office said.
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The young man confessed
The investigation of the whole planned attack was greatly accelerated by the fact that the young man confessed to his act. He testified that he “acted on the instructions of foreign criminals.” After stealing the secret data, Tesla’s attackers allegedly wanted to blackmail them into publishing all the data or selling it to a competitor if they did not pay them a ransom.
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The young man also stated that the Russian government knew about the whole event. However, neither the FBI nor lawyers have come up with any charges against the Kremlin, the BBC said.
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A young Russian faces up to ten months in prison for plotting to steal sensitive data.
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How extortion viruses attack
Extortion viruses can make a nice mess on an infected machine. First, they encrypt all the data stored on the hard disk. For their access, the attackers demand a ransom, even several thousand crowns.
Cybercriminals usually try to give the owner of the infected machine the impression that he will get to his files after paying a fine. It was allegedly assessed for the use of illegal software, etc. That is why many people have already paid them a ransom.
They usually want to pay in bitcoins, because the movements of this virtual currency are practically impossible to trace. And logically not even the illegal activity of hackers.
However, even after paying the ransom, users will not be able to access their data. Instead of paying the ransom, it is necessary to uninstall the virus from the computer. However, in most cases it is no longer possible to make unbacked up data available.
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