The U.S. Division of State is providing a reward of as much as $10 million for data on three Russian Federal Safety Service (FSB) officers concerned in cyberattacks concentrating on U.S. essential infrastructure organizations on behalf of the Russian authorities.
The three people, Marat Valeryevich Tyukov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Gavrilov, and Pavel Aleksandrovich Akulov, are a part of the FSB’s Middle 16 or Army Unit 71330, which is tracked as Berserk Bear, Blue Kraken, Crouching Yeti, Dragonfly, and Koala Staff.
In March 2022, the three FBS officers have been additionally charged for his or her involvement in a marketing campaign that came about between 2012 and 2017, concentrating on U.S. authorities businesses, together with the Nuclear Regulatory Fee, in addition to power corporations like Wolf Creek Nuclear Working Company, which operates a nuclear energy plant in Burlington, Kansas.
“For data on three Russian FSB officers who carried out malicious cyber actions in opposition to U.S. essential infrastructure on behalf of the Russian authorities. These officers additionally focused greater than 500 international power corporations in 135 different international locations,” the State Division tweeted on Tuesday.
“When you’ve got data on their actions, contact Rewards for Justice through the Tor-based tips-reporting channel [..] You may be eligible for a reward and relocation.”
Extra just lately, because the FBI warned in August, they exploited the CVE-2018-0171 vulnerability in end-of-life Cisco networking gadgets over the previous yr to breach corporations throughout U.S. essential infrastructure sectors by remotely executing arbitrary code on unpatched gadgets.
Cisco, which first detected CVE-2018-0171 assaults nearly 4 years in the past, in November 2021, up to date its advisory and urged community admins and safety groups to patch their gadgets in opposition to assaults as quickly as doable.
The networking large’s cybersecurity division, Cisco Talos, reported that the Russian state-sponsored hacking group has been aggressively exploiting this safety vulnerability to breach unpatched gadgets belonging to telecommunications, greater training, and manufacturing organizations throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The identical Russian menace group is understood for attacking U.S. state, native, territorial, and tribal (SLTT) authorities organizations and aviation entities during the last decade.
In June, the U.S. State Division additionally introduced a reward of as much as $10 million for data on state hackers tied to the RedLine infostealer malware operation and its suspected creator, Russian nationwide Maxim Alexandrovich Rudometov.
46% of environments had passwords cracked, almost doubling from 25% final yr.
Get the Picus Blue Report 2025 now for a complete take a look at extra findings on prevention, detection, and knowledge exfiltration developments.
