The U.S. Division of State is providing a reward of as much as $10 million for info on three Russian Federal Safety Service (FSB) officers concerned in cyberattacks focusing on U.S. crucial 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 Crew.
In March 2022, the three FBS officers have been additionally charged for his or her involvement in a marketing campaign that happened between 2012 and 2017, focusing on U.S. authorities companies, together with the Nuclear Regulatory Fee, in addition to vitality firms like Wolf Creek Nuclear Working Company, which operates a nuclear energy plant in Burlington, Kansas.
“For info on three Russian FSB officers who performed malicious cyber actions towards U.S. crucial infrastructure on behalf of the Russian authorities. These officers additionally focused greater than 500 overseas vitality firms in 135 different nations,” the State Division tweeted on Tuesday.
“When you’ve got info on their actions, contact Rewards for Justice through the Tor-based tips-reporting channel [..] You might be eligible for a reward and relocation.”
Extra not too long ago, because the FBI warned in August, they exploited the CVE-2018-0171 vulnerability in end-of-life Cisco networking units over the previous 12 months to breach firms throughout U.S. crucial infrastructure sectors by remotely executing arbitrary code on unpatched units.
Cisco, which first detected CVE-2018-0171 assaults virtually 4 years in the past, in November 2021, up to date its advisory and urged community admins and safety groups to patch their units towards assaults as quickly as potential.
The networking big’s cybersecurity division, Cisco Talos, reported that the Russian state-sponsored hacking group has been aggressively exploiting this safety vulnerability to breach unpatched units belonging to telecommunications, greater schooling, 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 over the past decade.
In June, the U.S. State Division additionally introduced a reward of as much as $10 million for info 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 12 months.
Get the Picus Blue Report 2025 now for a complete take a look at extra findings on prevention, detection, and information exfiltration tendencies.
