US sanctions two FSB hackers and promises reward for information on them
The US Treasury Department, together with the United Kingdom, has announced sanctions against two Russian Federal Security Service agents, Ruslan Peretyatko and Andrei Korinets, who were accused of spying on politicians, government officials and figures for many years.
According to the US Treasury Department, the Kremlin uses numerous hacker groups controlled by the FSB to subvert the United States and its allies and partners. At least in 2022, a cyberattack was carried out against a number of US federal agencies, Censor.NET reports, citing European Pravda.
One of the Russians' cyberattack methods was targeted spear phishing, an attack on specific people or organisations through, as a rule, emails with links that gave access to victims' devices.
The FSB officers Ruslan Peretyatko and Andrei Korinets, who have been sanctioned by the United States, are linked to this activity. Both sent phishing emails and used software to hack accounts and remotely access affected devices at least in 2016-2020.
In addition, the US Department of Justice has issued an indictment against the Russians, charging them with a criminal hacking conspiracy against US persons, including employees of the Department of Energy.
The US State Department announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the prosecution of Peretyatko and Korintsev.
On 7 December, the UK government accused the Russian FSB of attempting to interfere in political processes through cyberattacks. Deputy Foreign Secretary Leo Docherty said in the House of Commons that sanctions had been imposed on two people from the Star Blizzard hacker group, one of whom is an active FSB officer.
It is believed that this group is controlled by the Centre 18 unit OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERAL SECURITY SERVICE. The group is accused of carrying out hundreds of targeted hacking attacks on British politicians, civil servants, think tank employees, journalists, academics and other public figures.
