Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed the company was the target of a malware and extortion attempt.

While the company isn’t named in federal documents, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada said 27-year-old Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov “conspired with associates” to recruit an employee – who we now know is from Tesla’s Gigafacotry – to install malware onto their company’s computer network.

The government goes on to say the malware would have provided Kriuchkov and his co-conspirators with access to the company’s systems. They reportedly planned to steal information and threaten to make it public, unless a ransom was paid.

Kriuchkov contacted and met with the employee “numerous times to discuss the conspiracy,” and promised to pay them $1 million (£748,930 / €840,055) after the malware was installed on Tesla’s network. To help aid in the plan, Kriuchkov allegedly gave the employee a burner phone and instructed him to leave it in airplane mode until after the money was transferred.

However, the attempted extortion and malware attack failed. After being tipped off, the FBI contacted Kriuchkov who then drove from Reno to Los Angeles. He then asked an acquaintance to purchase an airline ticket for him, in an attempt to flee the United States. That failed as well as Kriuchkov was arrested on August 22nd in Los Angeles.

Kriuchkov was in the United States on a tourist visa and now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison as well as a $250,000 (£187,245 / €209,966) fine.

Not Your Typical Vacation

In the compliant, the government says Kriuchkov used WhatsApp to contact an employee of Company A – which we now know is Tesla – to arrange a meeting in person. The two had meet before, in 2016, and Kriuchkov said he’d like to visit the employee while on his trip to the United States. Following this discussion, Kriuchkov flew to America, in July, and rented a car in San Francisco which he used to drive to Reno, Nevada.

Kriuchkov meet with the employee numerous times in early August, before inviting them to help with a “special project.” He then revealed the plan to the employee, which would involve installing malware onto Tesla’s network while Kriuchkov and his co-conspirators conducted a distributed denial of service attack to divert attention away from the malware. Once the malware was installed, they would extract information from Tesla and extort them in return for a “substantial payment.”

Following this meeting, Kriuchkov continued to push the employee to join the plot and said they could give them a partial payment up-front. This was discussed in greater detail in a three-way phone call between the employee, Kriuchkov and a co-conspirator on or around August 17th. A day later, the $1 million (£748,930 / €840,055) offer was given.

The plot continued moving forward as the employee was told they’d have to provide information about the company to assist in the development of the malware. Kriuchkov also meet with the employee to download the Tor browser and set up a bitcoin wallet to deliver the payment.

These meetings and discussions continued, but employee tipped off officials and became a “confidential human source.” Thanks to this, the FBI was able to surveil and record Kriuchkov as well as his activities.  This information is now being used against him in court.

H/T to Arstechnica

Much appreciated. This was a serious attack.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2020