Factory Reset
Acording to Electrek, an FBI complaint details how the feds helped foil a plot by Russian hackers to target Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory with a massive ransomware hack and data breach.
It’s worth noting that the complaint itself never explicitly says that the target of the hack was Tesla, though its Gigafactory is located outside Sparks, Nevada. Electrek, though, is reporting as fact that Tesla is the target. We’ve reached out to Tesla for additional information and we’ll update if any new info comes to light.
Wheel Money
According to the complaint, a 27-year-old Russian hacker named Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov traveled to the United States this summer, where he sought out an anonymous employee who spoke Russian.
After socializing with the unnamed employee, Kriuchkov made an eyebrow-raising offer — saying he’d pay the insider $1 million to introduce malware into the company’s internal computer systems.
Hack at It
The employee, though, didn’t take the bait. Instead, according to the FBI, he notified his employer, which looped in the FBI. Then the FBI helped set up a sting operation in which the employee recorded communications and other evidence.
Interestingly — because Tesla founder Elon Musk is a known aficionado of video games — the FBI complaint contains a possible Easter Egg: during communications with the hacker, the unnamed Tesla employee asked Kriuchkov to use the codename “DeadSpace22.”
Editor’s note: A reader pointed out that, although Electrek is reporting that the company referenced in the FBI complaint is Tesla, the complaint itself never names the company. We’ve updated the post to reflect that ambiguity and reached out to…