U.S. CHARGES 2 RUSSIAN SPIES IN YAHOO HACK

Washington, March 15: Two agents of Russia’s FSB spy agency and two “criminal hackers” were indicted on Wednesday over a massive cyberattack affecting 500 million Yahoo users, the US Justice Department announced.

The indictment unveiled in Washington links Russia’s top spy agency to one of the largest hacking attacks in history, carried out in 2014, and which officials said was used for espionage and financial gain.

Officials identified the agents as Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, both of whom were part of the successor agency to Russia’s KGB.

Dokuchaev was an officer in the FSB Center for Information Security, known as “Center 18,” which is supposed to investigate hacking and is the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow for cyber crimes.

The 33-year-old was reported to have been arrested in Moscow earlier this year on treason charges. He is accused of directing the Yahoo hack along with his superior, the 43-year-old Sushchin.

The two officers “protected, directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the United States and elsewhere,” acting assistant attorney general Mary McCord said. — AFP

THE indictments come amid a highstakes US investigation into claims of Russian cyber-meddling in US election