Elon Musk confirms Russian hacking plot targeted Tesla factory
Elon Musk confirmed that the Tesla Inc factory in Nevada was the target of a thwarted cyberattack.
Musk tweeted on Thursday that “this was a serious attack,”
in response to a report by Teslarati that an employee at the Gigafactory in
Reno had helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation to derail the planned
attack by a Russian man who was arrested on Aug 22 and charged with conspiracy
to intentionally damage a protected computer.
The Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday that Egor
Igorevich Kriuchkov, 27, had tried to recruit an employee at a unidentified
company to introduce malware in the company’s computer system. The malware was
intended to extract data from the network and to seek ransom from the company,
according to the Justice Department.
Kriuchkov promised the employee he would get $1 million
after the malware was introduced into the computer network, according to the
Justice Department.
The Tesla employee who was approached by Kriuchkov is a
Russian-speaking person who had access to company’s computer networks,
Teslarati reported on Thursday. The employee warned Tesla about the approach
and the company informed the FBI, Teslarati reported.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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