Three of the four people who have been indicted in connection to a massive hack of Yahoo accounts are now on top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list for cyber crimes.
The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that four individuals had been indicted after the hack affected at least 500 million Yahoo accounts. One of the defendants, Karim Baratov, 22, was arrested in Ancaster, Ontario, on Tuesday.
The remaining three — including two officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) — are wanted for computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offenses in connection with a conspiracy.
In recent years, the US started to publicly “name and shame” countries and people behind the proliferation of cyber intrusions targeting US companies and government networks in an effort to discourage them from conducting such attacks.
Here are the top five FBI’s Most Wanted for cybercrimes — all of them are from foreign countries.
1. Alexsey Belan, 29
Belan is one of the four charged in connection with the Yahoo hack and has been indicted three times for crimes relating to computer intrusions.
Wanted for: Conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse, accessing a computer without authorization for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain; damaging a computer through the transmission of code and commands; economic espionage; theft of trade secrets, access device fraud; aggravated identity theft; and wire fraud.
Background: Born in Latvia, Belan has Russian citizenship and is known to hold a Russian passport. He speaks Russian and may travel within Russia, Greece, Latvia, the Maldives and Thailand. He was last known to be in Krasnodar, Russia.
Reward: $100,000
Dokuchaev is one of the four charged in connection with the Yahoo hack and is alleged to have worked for the Russian FSB, assigned to FSB’s Center for Information Security — also known as Center 18. Center 18 investigates cyber and high-technology crimes and is the Russian government’s eyes and ears on hacking.
Wanted for: Conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse; accessing a computer without authorization for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain; damaging a computer through the transmission of code and commands; economic espionage; theft of trade secrets; access device fraud; aggravated identity theft; and wire fraud.
Background: It seems Dokuchaev is already behind bars — in the high-security Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. A man by the name of Dmitry Dokuchaev, along with three others, was arrested in Moscow in December. All four are accused of treason, “on behalf of the United States” according to a lawyer involved in the case.
Reward: none listed
Sushchin is one of the four charged in connection with the Yahoo hack and is alleged to have worked for the Russian FSB. The indictment alleges that he and Dokuchaev “protected, directed, facilitated, and paid their co-conspirators to collect information through computer intrusions in the United States and elsewhere.”
Wanted for: Conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse; accessing a computer without authorization for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain; damaging a computer through the transmission of code and commands; economic espionage; theft of trade secrets; access device fraud; and wire fraud.
Background: Sushchin is alleged to be a Russian FSB officer of unknown rank and is also alleged to have served as head of information security for a Russian company, providing information about employees to the FSB. He was last known to be in Moscow.
Reward: none listed
He is not among those charged in the Yahoo hack. Bogachev was last known to be living in Anapa, Russia.
Wanted for: Conspiracy to participate in racketeering activity; bank fraud, conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; conspiracy to violate the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act; aggravated identity theft; conspiracy; computer fraud; wire fraud; money laundering; and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Background: Bogachev is wanted for his involvement in a scheme using a malicious software on victims’ computers that captures bank account numbers, passwords and PINs which were used to steal money from their accounts. Federal authorities say Bogachev led a gang of cyber criminals in Russia and Ukraine, and have stolen more than $100 million with their botnet. He was indicted in 2014.
Reward: $3 million
Each defendant worked for Iranian private security computer companies that performed work on behalf of the Iranian Government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Wanted for: Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
Background: A group of Iranian hackers were indicted in January in connection to a 2013 computer intrusion of a small New York dam and a series of cyberattacks on dozens of US banks. The Iranian hackers targeted financial institutions in 2013 and 2014 including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and dozens of other banks, US. investigators found.
Reward: none listed
