FSB detains mathematician Khoroshilov for cyber attacks on Russia's critical infrastructure

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The court extended the scientist's arrest until May 12, 2024.

The Russian Federal Security Service has detained mathematician Artem Khoroshilov, who is suspected of DDoS attacks on critical information infrastructure facilities in the Russian Federation, TASS reports. The accused is being held in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow.

As reported in the press service of the court, the Lefortovo court of Moscow extended the hacker's arrest for three months. Khoroshilov will be held in pre-trial detention until May 12, 2024. He is charged with part 4 of Article 274.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - illegal influence on the critical information infrastructure of the Russian Federation.

During the investigation, he admitted his guilt and declared his readiness to cooperate with the investigation to establish all the circumstances of the crime.

According to open sources, Artem Leonidovich Khoroshilov is a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and in 2019 he defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the Institute of General Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

 

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Treason for DDoS attacks

TASS and RIA Novosti, citing the FSB Public Relations Center, reported that the FSB opened a criminal case under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (high treason) against an employee of one of the scientific organizations. Initially, he was detained on suspicion of committing DDoS attacks on the critical information infrastructure of Russia (a crime under Article 274.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) at the direction of the Ukrainian special services. But then the collection of information about the Russian armed forces, as well as the transfer of funds to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was added to the charges, and a criminal case was initiated not for influencing the CII, but under a more serious article.

"According to the investigation, he initiated contact with representatives of the Ukrainian special services. After the start of the special military operation, on their instructions, the detainee carried out DDoS attacks on critical facilities of the Russian Federation in order to damage the information security of Russia. He collected information about Russian servicemen and the movement of military equipment," the DSP reported.

In addition, according to the FSB, he constantly transferred personal funds and cryptocurrency to the accounts of funds registered in Ukraine for the purchase of weapons, military equipment and equipment by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "The detainee confessed," the DSP reported.

TASS and RIA Novosti do not report details about the accused. However, we are probably talking about Artem Khoroshilov. In February, TASS reported that Khoroshilov was detained in December and accused of committing DDoS attacks on CII (Article 274.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In the video, which was distributed today by RIA Novosti, the detention takes place in winter. In the February TASS report, there was no indication of the detainee's connection with Ukraine, but after that, Regnum, citing a source, added that Khoroshilov "has long been a member of Ukrainian chats, the administrators of which finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine," as well as "in chats that are dedicated to life hacks for transferring money from abroad to Russia and in the opposite direction."

Regnum also provided additional information about the accused: "Mathematician is 33 years old, he graduated from one of the capital's physics and technical universities and was engaged in private teaching. In particular, the mathematician prepared schoolchildren for Olympiads."

In open sources, under the name of Artyom Leonidovich Khoroshilov, you can find mentions of an employee of the Institute of General Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who defended his PhD thesis in physical and mathematical sciences in 2019.

Several criminal cases are already related to the cyber conflict. In 2023, in Rostov-on-Don, three people were separately sentenced to 2-3 years in a penal colony and fines under Article 274.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for DDoS attacks on CII. In October last year, it was reported that a student in Tomsk was detained for "assisting hacker groups supervised by [Ukraine's] security forces" (later it was reported that he received instructions from the Cyber Anarchy Squad), and a man in the Kemerovo region, who was charged with joining a Ukrainian cyber unit acting in the interests of the special services, and participating in cyberattacks on Russian information resources. Both of them were charged under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.