by
KEN RITTER and SCOTT SONNER associated Press
September 24, 2020, eleven:34 PM
• three min study
Share to FacebookEmail this textRENO, Nev. -- A Russian citizen accused of providing a Tesla employee $1 million to allow a ransomware attack at the electric automobile business's plant in Nevada denied wrongdoing Thursday before a federal magistrate choose.
“i am now not responsible," Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov talked about according to a can charge of conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a covered computer.
He stated previous within the listening to that he desired “to head through the whole system as fast as possible."
Kriuchkov, 26, also informed U.S. Justice of the Peace decide Carla 1st earl baldwin of bewdley that he knew the Russian executive became aware of his case. Authorities have not alleged that Kriuchkov has ties to the Kremlin. Authorities originally said he changed into 27.
The choose in Reno ordered Kriuchkov to stay in federal custody pending trial, scheduled Dec. 1 however prone to be postponed.
A conviction may carry a sentence of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 first-class, mentioned Nicholas Trutanich, U.S. attorney in Nevada. Deportation could observe a prison time period.
courtroom documents say Kriuchkov was within the united states on a Russian passport and a tourist visa when he tried to recruit an worker of what changed into recognized as “company A" to set up software enabling a computer hack.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated his enterprise was the target of what he termed a serious effort to bring together company secrets. Tesla has a enormous factory close Reno that makes batteries for electric automobiles and energy storage devices. business officials didn't immediately respond Thursday to messages.
Kriuchkov is accused of spending greater than five weeks meeting, drinking, touring and communicating by way of cyber web chat app with the unnamed employee, according to courtroom files. Some meetings have been monitored and recorded by way of the FBI. It become no longer clear from the documents if cash modified hands.
The plot changed into stopped before any damage took place, the FBI noted.
Kriuchkov spoke Thursday in English and had a Russian translator obtainable.
His appointed attorneys, federal public defenders Sylvia Irvin and Brandon Jaroch, did not automatically reply to messages about his court docket look, which changed into held by way of videoconference because of restrictions on in-grownup gatherings amid the pandemic.
Kriuchkov became arrested Aug. 22 in l. a., where prosecutors say he became heading to an airport to fly out of the country. he is being held within the Washoe County prison in Reno without bail.
The hack changed into designed to encompass a disbursed denial-of-service attack, the usage of junk statistics to flood the Tesla computer device, while a second intrusion would gain files that could be dumped on the open information superhighway if the enterprise didn’t pay the ransom, in keeping with court docket documents.
other suspected co-conspirators are identified in a criminal criticism by way of nicknames. References are made to at least one different failed effort to target a further unidentified business.
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Ritter reported from Las Vegas.
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