WASHINGTON: Wednesday’s indictments in the US of four people in a 2014 cyberattack on Yahoo Inc. provides the clearest details yet on what some officials say is a symbiotic relationship between Moscow’s security services and private Russian hackers.
The indictment charges two officers of the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service, and two hackers who allegedly worked hand-in-hand with them to crack 500 million Yahoo user accounts.
US authorities and cybersecurity specialists have long said the Kremlin employs criminal hackers for its geostrategic purposes. They say the arrangement offers deniability to Moscow and freedom from legal troubles for the hackers.
A US intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said employing criminal hackers helps “complement Kremlin intentions and provide plausible deniability for the Russian state.”
The FSB in Moscow did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.
The United States sometimes engages with criminal hackers as well, buying tools from them or recruiting them to help find other criminal hackers, cybersecurity professionals and government officials say.
Milan Patel, a former FBI cyber agent and now managing director for cyber defense at K2 Intelligence, said the intermingling of espionage and cybercrime in Russia had led the United States and its allies to be far more wary about alerting Moscow to criminal hackers.
“Magically those guys would disappear off the battlefield and most likely end up working for the Russian government,” Patel said of the names shared by Washington.
The Russian government had no official comment on the charges in the Yahoo case.
Russian news accounts stressed that one of the FSB agents, Dmitry Dokuchaev, was arrested by Russian authorities in December and charged with treason.
The indictment charges Dokuchaev with having acted as a handler for a hacker named Karim Baratov, directing him to use the Yahoo data to crack e-mails on other systems and paying him a bounty when he succeeded.
Baratov is in custody in Canada, according to the Toronto police, while Dokuchaev remains in Russia.
The charges coincide with mounting tensions between US intelligence agencies and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government, which they accused of hacking the 2016 US presidential election to influence the vote in favor of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.
In addition, congressional committees are investigating possible links between Russian figures and associates of President Trump.
Senator John Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement the indictments showed “the close and mutually beneficial ties between the cyber underworld and Russia’s government and security services.”
He said the case “underscores the complexity and the urgency” of the committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the US election.
James Lewis, a former State Department official and now a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there were three rules for cooperation between the Russian government and criminal hackers.
Private hackers know to avoid attacking Russian-language sites and to share their profits with authorities, he said. “Rule Number Three (is), if we ask you to do us a favor, do it.”
Yahoo cyber indictment shows Kremlin, hackers working hand-in-hand
Yahoo cyber indictment shows Kremlin, hackers working hand-in-hand
Pakistan rules out talks with Afghanistan, says more than 330 Afghan fighters killed in operations
- More than 330 Afghan fighters killed in operations
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ruled out talks with Afghanistan until there is an end to “terrorism” emanating from Afghan soil, officials said on Friday. The statement follows the killing of more than 330 Afghan fighters in cross-border skirmishes this week.
The latest clashes between the neighbors erupted after Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan territory last weekend triggered retaliatory attacks along the border on Thursday, escalating long‑simmering tensions over Pakistan’s claim that Afghanistan shelters Pakistani Taliban militants. Afghanistan denies this, saying Pakistan is deflecting blame for its own security failures.
Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said his country had killed 331 Afghan fighters, destroyed over 100 posts and targeted 37 military locations across Afghanistan. Afghan officials have said more than 50 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and several Pakistan posts captured. Neither casualty figures nor battlefield claims by either side could be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Mosharraf Zaidi, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesperson for foreign media, ruled out any talks with Afghanistan until Kabul addresses the issue, while the US expressed support for what it called Pakistan’s “right to defend itself” against attacks from Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
“There won’t be any talks, there is nothing to talk about ... Terrorism from Afghanistan has to end,” Zaidi told state-run Pakistan TV Digital, saying Islamabad would continue to target militant havens inside Afghanistan.
“Pakistan’s responsibility is to protect its citizens. If we know that there is a terrorist in point A and we know that there is a terrorist enabler at point A, we will find a weapon to land at point A and eliminate the threat.”
Zaidi said he did not expect Pakistan to deviate from this position: “We have clearly articulated what we are doing and what we plan on continuing to do and what it will take for us to stop doing what we are doing.”
He added: “And we will expect that both the international community and the regime in question, the Afghan Taliban, will come to their senses and will help reduce instability and disorder in this region.”
Pakistan is a major non-NATO ally of Washington, while the US considers the Afghan Taliban a “terrorist” group.
“The United States supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks from the Taliban, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group,” Reuters quoted a State Department spokesperson as saying.
US diplomat Allison Hooker said on X she had spoken with Pakistan Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch on Friday.
The State Department spokesperson said Washington was aware of the escalation in tensions and “outbreak of fighting between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban,” adding the US was “saddened by the loss of life.”
“The Taliban have consistently failed to uphold their counterterrorism commitments,” it said. “Terrorist groups use Afghanistan as a launching pad for their heinous attacks.”
Meanwhile, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid called for talks to resolve the crisis.
“We have always emphasized peaceful resolution, and now too we want the issue to be resolved through dialogue,” he said on Friday afternoon.
Asked what Pakistan desired, Tarar said: “Neutralizing the threat and ensuring that Pakistan is safe. Because for us, we’ve been good neighbors, we’ve been very friendly neighbors, we’ve been very, very generous neighbors. Our generosity, unfortunately, has often been seen as our weakness. So the objective, aim is to neutralize the threat and make Pakistan safe.”
He added it was too early to comment on a ceasefire as it was an evolving situation.
