Man accused of cyberattack plot against Nevada company
RENO — A Russian national was arrested in Los Angeles over the weekend on a charge of attempting to infect a Nevada company with malware and hold its data for ransom, the Nevada U.S. attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, a 27-year-old Russian citizen, is facing one count of conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer.
Authorities believe Kriuchkov tried to recruit an employee of an unidentified company in Nevada that is referred to in court documents only as “Victim Company A” to install malware into the compa
bill passed in July during the Legislature’s first special session that authorizes ballot collecting for the November election. The bill also expanded vote-by-mail and passed on the strength of Democratic majorities in both the Assembly and Senate. The Trump campaign and national and state Republicans have sued to block the changes.
Cegavske, whose office serves as the state’s chief election watchdog, last week asked Sisolak for an emergency rule to require anyone who gathers 10 or more ballots to report to her office and disclose any political, corporate or advocacy group affiliation. She said the information was necessary to “investigate and stop illegal activity associated with ballot harvesting.”
Ballot collecting — more insidiously called “harvesting” by opponents, with allusions to ballot-box stuffing — was outlawed in Nevada in 1993 and, before this summer’s change, was a felony under state law. That was changed in 1999 to allow family members to return a
ballot on behalf of relatives.
Though Cegavske’s letter to the governor focused on ballot integrity, her announcement of the move to media struck a more partisan tone, and Sisolak was caustic in his reply. He said Cegavske had failed to identify an emergency that warranted regulation and had cited, without evidence, only nonspecific hypothetical experiences of “bad actors in other states.” He cited practical and procedural roadblocks to her request and said he was “disappointed” by the move.
“If you were truly interested in identifying and instituting safeguards for Nevada’s voter assistance laws, you could have worked with my administration directly — as we have on other projects since I took office — instead of announcing the request through the media,” he wrote in response.