The scale of the crime was titanic, the biggest hacking case ever brought to court by the U.S. The hackers cyber-pried their way into a half-billion Yahoo user accounts, gathering intelligence on American diplomatic and military officials, White House personnel, Russian journalists and dissidents, and a U.S. airline.
No, we're not revisiting last week's testimony by FBI Director James Comey. We're talking about fresh twists in an astonishing crime spree that dates to 2014 but has largely faded from view.
The Department of Justice recently charged four people in connection with the 2014 break-in, and it comes as no surprise that they're Russian comrades-in-arms. In fact, two of them work for Russia's successor agency to the KGB, the Federal Security Service. So on the heels of the Kremlin's tap dance all over the U.S. presidential campaign, we now have hard evidence of the Russian government's cyber-plundering of a Silicon Valley giant and 500 million of its users.
"With these charges, the Department of Justice is continuing to send the powerful message that we will not allow individuals, groups, nation-states or a combination of them to compromise the privacy of our citizens, the economic interest of our companies or the security of our country," acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord said in announcing the charges.
Strong words, but we wonder how powerful that message is when three of the accused-FSB agents Igor Sushchin and Dmitry Dokuchaev, along with Interpol-wanted hacker Alexsey Belan-are safely in the arms of Mother Russia. (A fourth defendant, Karim Baratov, was arrested in Canada on March 14.) The U.S. has no extradition treaty with Russia, and even if it did, it's doubtful Russian President and former (current?) spymaster Vladimir Putin would acquiesce to handing over the men to American justice.
Nevertheless, a powerful message needs to be sent. Sanctions against Russia are likely the best-and only-tool.
Russian hackers have been plying American bank and credit accounts for years. But as we've continued to see, the Russian government also views American public and private computers as tantalizing quarry. Hence Comey's acknowledgment that the FBI is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, and whether backers of President Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government's bid to influence the election.
Cyber-espionage is the new global battlefield, and Russia is on the wrong side of the trenches. The Yahoo affair is especially galling, considering that the two Russian agents worked for an FSB unit that works with the agency to root out cybercrime. It's hard to cooperate with Russian officials in order to pursue hackers when Russian officials are doing the hacking.
The U.S. likely won't get the two FSB agents or Belan, but there should be consequences for the Russian government. Sanctions appear to be the best course of action. We leave it up to the Trump administration to decide scope and targets. This is an opportunity for the U.S. to draw a red line for Putin when it comes to cyber-ops against America and its allies. And it's an opportunity for President Trump to show a nervous American public that he can assertively stand up to a Kremlin he has coddled.