Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed Twitter that a worker helped thwart a planned cyberattack on his Snow Gigafactory.
“Very appreciated. It’s a serious attack,” Musk tweeted Thursday in reaction to a Teslarati report on the malware hack attempt.
Teslarati, a news story committed to updates from the electric car manufacturer, first reported that a $1 million bribe to insert malware into the automaker’s networks. Instead, the unidentified employee helped the government thwart the planned cybersecurity attack.
Teslarati referred to the arrest of Igorevich Kriuchkov, a Russian citizen accused of conspiracy to consecrate a cybercrime, through the Ministry of Justice.
The Justice Department drafted the call from the company that Kriuchkov allegedly tried to infiltrate his arrest, but Musk’s tweet on Thursday publicly connected Tesla to the dramatic case.
In a statement previously released this week, the Justice Department said Kriuchkov had been arrested for his “paper role in a conspiracy to recruit a corporate worker to introduce malware into the company’s computer network, extract knowledge from the network, and extort the company as a ransom.”
Kriuchkov, who entered the United States on a tourist visa, was charged with a conspiracy charge to deliberately damage a computer. The DOJ stated that he allegedly contacted and met with a worker from the company he sought to infiltrate several times and promised to pay $1 million to the worker, who was not identified, after the malware arrived.
It’s unclear if Kriuchkov has received a lawyer. Tesla did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the incident.
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