The U.S. Justice Department released the below information:
Karim Baratov, aka Kay, aka
Karim Taloverov, aka Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov, 23, was sentenced to five years
in prison and ordered to pay a fine, which encompasses all of his remaining
assets.
Assistant Attorney General
for National Security John C. Demers, Acting U.S. Attorney Alex G. Tse for the
Northern District of California, and Special Agent in Charge John F. Bennett of
the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office made the announcement. The sentence was handed down today by U.S.
District Judge the Honorable Vince Chhabria.
“Criminal hackers and the
countries that sponsor them make a grave mistake when they target American
companies and citizens. We will identify
them wherever they are and bring them to justice,” said Assistant Attorney
General Demers. “I would like to thank
Canadian law enforcement authorities for their tremendous assistance in
bringing Baratov to justice. We will
continue to work with our foreign partners to find and prosecute those who
would violate our laws.”
“The sentence imposed
reflects the seriousness of hacking for hire,” said Acting U.S. Attorney
Tse. “Hackers such as Baratov ply their
trade without regard for the criminal objectives of the people who hire and pay
them. These hackers are not minor
players; they are a critical tool used by criminals to obtain and exploit
personal information illegally. In
sentencing Baratov to five years in prison, the Court sent a clear message to
hackers that participating in cyber attacks sponsored by nation states will
result in significant consequences.”
“It's difficult to overstate
the unprecedented nature of this conspiracy, in which members of a foreign
intelligence service directed and empowered criminal hackers to conduct a massive
cyber-attack against 500 million victim user accounts,” said Special Agent in
Charge Bennett. “Today's sentencing
demonstrates the FBI's unwavering commitment to disrupt and prosecute malicious
cyber actors despite their attempts to conceal their identities and hide from
justice.”
Baratov, a Canadian national
and resident, and three other defendants, including two officers of the Russian
Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s domestic law enforcement and
intelligence service, were charged with a number of offenses relating to the
hacking of webmail accounts at Yahoo and other service providers. In particular, the defendants were charged in
a computer hacking conspiracy in which the two Russian FSB officers hired
criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the
United States and abroad, which resulted in the unauthorized access of Yahoo’s
network and the spear phishing of webmail accounts at other service providers
between January 2014 and December 2016.
Baratov’s role in the charged
conspiracy was to hack webmail accounts of individuals of interest to his
coconspirator who was working for the FSB and send those accounts’ passwords to
Dokuchaev in exchange for money.
The Indictment is available
here, and its allegations are summarized in greater detail in the press release
that attended the unsealing of the Indictment on March 15, 2017.
Baratov has been detained
since his arrest in Canada in March 2017.
Baratov waived extradition to the United States and was transferred to
the Northern District of California in August 2017. In November 2017, Baratov pleaded guilty to
Count One and Counts Forty through Forty-Seven of the Indictment. Count One charged Baratov, Dokuchaev,
Sushchin and Belan with conspiring to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
by stealing information from protected computers and causing damage to
protected computers. Counts Forty
through Forty-Seven charged Baratov and Dokuchaev with aggravated identity
theft. As part of his plea agreement,
Baratov not only admitted to agreeing and attempting to hack at least 80
webmail accounts on behalf of one of his FSB co-conspirators, but also to
hacking more than 11,000 webmail accounts in total from in or around 2010 until
his March 2017 arrest by Canadian authorities.
In addition to any prison sentence, Baratov agreed to pay restitution to
his victims, and to pay a fine up to $2,250,000, at $250,000 per count, with
any assets he has remaining after satisfying a restitution award.
The FBI, led by the San Francisco
Field Office, conducted the investigation that resulted in the charges in the
Indictment. The case is being prosecuted
by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and the
U.S. Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and
Export Control Section, with support from the Justice Department’s Office of
International Affairs.
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