Two officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) have been indicted to a massive hack of Yahoo information, The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced on Wednesday last week. The Yahoo hack was initiated in January 2014, affecting up to 500 million Yahoo accounts.
Some of the stolen information in the Yahoo hack included names, email addresses and passwords, but strangely, not financial information, according to Yahoo. The hack used the information to obtain unauthorized access to the contents of accounts at Google, Yahoo and other webmail providers, the DOJ said in a statement. The contents also include accounts of Russian journalists, U.S. and Russian government officials and private-sector employees of financial, transportation and other companies.
The two officers of the FSB, Russia's successor to the Soviet Union's KGB, work for its cyber investigation division and were identified as 43-year-old Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, and 33-year-old Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev. The two officers allegedly conspired with Russian national Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan and Karim Baratov in the Yahoo Hack, who has Canadian citizenship, according to Wired.
Before the Yahoo hack, Dokuchaev was already arrested in a Russian sweep in December and accused of spying for the U.S. "The criminal conduct at issue, carried out and facilitated by officers from an FSB unit that serves as the FBI's point of contact in Moscow on cybercrime matters, is beyond the pale," acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord commented.
Meanwhile, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer thanked the U.S. authorities on Wednesday. Yahoo has been breached at least twice, according to CNN, and the company previously mentioned that the breach was state-sponsored.
Yahoo, however, declined to identify who it believed was responsible. The Yahoo hack is the latest cyber attack crime that U.S. authorities have blamed on Russia, a nation with which President Donald Trump has been wanting to foster warmer relations with.
