The United States Treasury Department and the United Kingdom jointly announced sanctions against Ruslan Peretyatko and Andrei Korents, two agents of the Russian Federal Security Service. They are accused of long-term espionage aimed at politicians, officials and public figures.
Source: “ European Truth ” with reference to the statement of the American Ministry of Finance
Details: As the department points out, the Kremlin uses numerous hacker groups controlled by the FSB for subversive activities against the United States and its allies and partners. At least in 2022, a cyber attack was carried out against a number of American federal agencies.
One of the methods of Russian cyberattacks was targeted phishing (spear fishing) - an attack on specific people or organizations through, as a rule, email messages with links that gave access to victims' applications.
FSB officers Ruslan Peretyatko and Andrei Korinets, against whom the United States announced sanctions, are associated with this activity. Both sent phishing emails at least in 2016-2020, and also used programs to hack into accounts and remotely access affected devices.
In addition, the US Department of Justice published an indictment against the Russians, charging them with a criminal hacking conspiracy against American individuals, in particular employees of Department of Energy facilities.
And the US State Department announced a reward of up to $10 million for information that would bring Peretyatko and Korinets to justice.
What preceded : On December 7, the British government accused the Russian FSB of attempting to interfere in political processes through cyber attacks. Deputy Foreign Secretary Leo Docherty told the House of Commons that sanctions had been imposed against two people from the Star Blizzard hacker group, one of them a serving FSB officer.
It is believed that this group is controlled by the “Center 18” unit of the Russian FSB. She is accused of carrying out hundreds of targeted hacking attacks on British politicians, civil servants, think tank workers, journalists, academics and other public figures.
EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell condemned malicious cyber interference in electoral processes and institutions following British statements accusing the FSB on behalf of the European Union.
