A Russian-speaking, non-U.S. citizen worker working at Tesla Gigafactory managed to thwart a cyberattack targeting the company, by turning down a $1 million incentive.
The scheme targeted the electric car company;s 1.9 million-square-foot factory in Sparks, Nevada, which makes batteries for Tesla vehicles and energy storage units.
"This was a serious attack," Musk tweeted.
While the company isn’t named in federal documents, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada said that a 27-year-old Russian national named Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov "conspired with associates" to recruit a Tesla employee to install malware onto their company’s computer network.
Kriuchkov was said to have contacted and met with the employee “numerous times to discuss the conspiracy.”
Kriuchkov invited the Tesla employee to collaborate with a "group" to carry out "special projects."
More specifically, he offered the employee $500,000 to install a type of malware on Tesla's network. Kriuchkov even allegedly gave the employee a burner phone to aid with the plan.
Following this meeting, Kriuchkov continued to again convince and push the employee to join the plot, and said that he could give him a partial payment up-front, with a final incentive raised to $1 million if the plan went as intended.
This was discussed in greater detail in a three-way phone call between the employee, Kriuchkov and a co-conspirator on or around August 17.
However, the Tesla employee reported this to his employee, which then contacted the FBI instead, and played a plan to catch Kriuchkov.
During a meeting on August 19, the Tesla employee wore a hidden device from the FBI, and met Kriuchkov. The Russian hacker agreed to pay the employee an advance of $11,000.
Two days later, on August 21, the Tesla employee was contacted by the hacker once more, who said that the project was being “delayed” and all payments relating to the plan would not be transferred until a later date.
Kriuchkov also informed the Tesla employee that he was leaving the area the following day.
After being tipped off, the FBI contacted Kriuchkov who then drove from Reno in Nevada to Los Angeles.
He then asked his associate to purchase an airline ticket for him, in an attempt to flee the U.S..
The authorities were quick, and managed to arrest Kriuchkov on August 22nd in Los Angeles.
Kriuchkov was in the United States on a tourist visa, and is facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison as well as a $250,000 in fine.
If ever the Tesla employee didn't refuse to be their associate, Kriuchkov could have accessed the company’s systems through the malware, steal sensitive corporate information, and threaten to make it public unless a ransom was paid.
The employee would have netted $1 million, to be paid in cash or Bitcoin.
