Tesla Factory Becomes Target Of Russian Cyber Attacks

Tesla Gigafactory of Nevada, AS (doc. Teslarati)

JAKARTA - The Tesla Inc factory located in Nevada has been targeted by cyber attacks. Elon Musk has reported the attack to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Although it was successfully thwarted, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk felt quite annoyed by the cyber attack. According to him, this is a serious action.

"This is a serious attack," tweeted Elon Musk, as quoted by Reuters, Friday, August 28.

Quoting Teslarati's official statement, this cyber attack case occurred when an unknown person tried to break through Tesla's security net. The perpetrator even manipulated a Tesla employee who worked at the Nevada Gigafactory, USA.

The perpetrator, known as Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, plans to embed a malware virus into the software owned by the electric car maker. If successful, the DDoS type malware allows hackers to extract corporate documents and Tesla's security net.

"The perpetrator had offered a bribe of 1 million US dollars to Tesla employees to insert malware into the system," wrote the US Justice Department.

Tesla then coordinated with the FBI to thwart the attack and arrest the perpetrators. Armed with a chat on WhatsApp's social media with a Tesla employee, Kriuchkov was arrested on August 22 in Los Angeles in an attempt to escape.

"The purpose of the conspiracy is to recruit an employee of a company to secretly deliver malware to extract data and threaten the company to pay a ransom," said the US District Court Attorney.