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Russian tourist offered employee $1 million to cripple Tesla with malware:
Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory was the target of a concerted plot to cripple the company's network with malware, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Thursday afternoon.
The plan's outline was divulged on Tuesday in a criminal complaint that accused a Russian man of offering $1 million to the employee of a Nevada company, identified only as "Company A," in exchange for the employee infecting the company's network. The employee reported the offer to Tesla and later worked with the FBI in a sting that involved him covertly recording face-to-face meetings discussing the proposal.
"The purpose of the conspiracy was to recruit an employee of a company to surreptitiously transmit malware provided by the coconspirators into the company's computer system, exfiltrate data from the company's network, and threaten to disclose the data online unless the company paid the coconspirators' ransom demand," prosecutors wrote in the complaint.
Was the Russian working for Ivan Vanko?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 29 2020, @04:34AM (9 children)
That's a pretty big incentive. Musk and company are lucky the spy chose the wrong person to recruit.
Of course, the chances of being caught were probably reasonably high. Computer forensics have caught a lot of wannabe "hackers", not to mention kiddy diddlers and other criminals. I presume Trump maintains reasonably high security standards.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 29 2020, @05:18AM (1 child)
Trump, oh-kay - reading too many pages at the same time, LOL
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @05:16PM
Curses! You corrected yourself before I could mock you.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday August 29 2020, @05:42AM (5 children)
Humorous!
Then you had to go all childish, and make a cliche political jab. Uncouth and sad.
If the Russian government wanted IP from Tesla, they'd already have it... i.e. the perpetrator is a Russian nutjob, or this is a farce.
Maybe it's my redesigned tinfoil hat.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Saturday August 29 2020, @06:25AM (2 children)
My guess it is really not a Russian-government attack, rather Russian-criminal. I mean Russian private-sector criminal.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @10:46AM
To be more presize, Jew residing at former Soviet block private enterprize criminal.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @12:36PM
Probably contracted by someone at the UAW...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday August 29 2020, @02:48PM (1 child)
I gather from Runaway's followup comment that he accidentally typed "Trump" when he had intended to type "Musk". So please replace "Trump" with "Musk" and see how it works for you.
Good point. I posit: maybe Russian govt. (or whoever is supposedly behind this) already has the IP they want and this whole tourist / spy thing is a smokescreen.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday August 29 2020, @02:50PM
Now it's my turn- I meant "propose", not "posit". Hitting "submit" when in a rush is never good...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday August 29 2020, @07:47AM
That's *so* unfair. Musk should have had him insert the malware into a honeynet, let it exfiltrate some fake data, and laugh at them when they try to collect the money. At least he should have given the guy a solid chunk of change for coming forward -- It's not like he can't afford it.