Elon Musk confirms 'serious' cyberattack on Tesla by Russian citizen

Days after US Justice Department informed about the arrest of Russian citizen over the role in introducing malware into an ‘unnamed’ company, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has confirmed on Thursday, August 27 that it was, in fact, the electric car maker Tesla that was subjected to a “serious attack”. Replying to an article shared by the company’s news website Teslarati, that talked about how the Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov was a part of a well-financed and organised scheme, Musk replied, “much appreciated”.

The US Justice Department had said that 27-year-old Kriuchkov was arrested on August 22 on the charge of conspiring to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer by attempting to recruit an employee to introduce malware into a system. The statement had also revealed that the specific malware was intended to extract data from the network and then to threaten the company for ransom money. 

The US Justice Department had also said that Kriuchkov had promised the employee an incentive of $1 million to do the deed. However, the worker ended up alerting the FBI leading to Russian citizen’s arrest. From Kriuchkov contacting the Russian-speaking, non-US citizen working at Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada in July to the hacker revealing how he and his team received a ransom worth over $4 million from a high profile company, the company elaborated how the entire attack played out against the company. 

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Elon Musk becomes centibillionaire

Tesla confirmed the cyberattack a day after Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth also witnessed a record surge and became a ‘centibillionaire', joining Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Elon Musk got to celebrate a wealthy milestone as markets closed on Wednesday, August 26, as his net worth reached $101 billion and is still the fourth-richest. Reportedly Tesla Inc shares also piked by 6 per cent during the latest trading session. In the year stricken with unprecedented circumstances, Tesla CEO bagged $73.6 billion.

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