In September 2020, a Nevada court charged Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov with conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer. The court alleges that Kruichkov attempted to recruit an employee of Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory.
Kriochkov and his associates reportedly offered a Tesla employee $1 million to “transmit malware” onto Tesla’s network via email or USB drive to “exfiltrate data from the network.” The Kruichkov conspiracy was disrupted before any damage could be done.
But it wasn’t the first time Tesla had faced an insider threat. In June 2018, CEO Elon Musk emailed all Tesla staff to report that one of the company’s employees had “conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to [Tesla’s] operations.”
With state-sponsored cybercrime syndicates wreaking havoc worldwide, we could soon see further attempts to infiltrate companies. That’s why it’s crucial to run background checks on new hires and ensure an adequate level of internal security.
