The FSB is an intelligence and law enforcement agency of the Russian Federation, and it’s believed that the two FSB officers work in an FSB unit that serves as the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow on cyber crime matters. According to McCord, “The involvement and direction of FSB officers with law enforcement responsibilities make this conduct that much more egregious—there are no free passes for foreign state-sponsored criminal behavior.”

According to the indictment, from about April 2014 up to at least December 2016, FSB officers Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin directed this cyber intrusion conspiracy—which involved malicious files and software tools being downloaded onto Yahoo’s network—that resulted in the compromise of that network and the theft of subscriber information from at least 500 million accounts. This stolen information was then used to obtain unauthorized access to the contents of accounts at Yahoo, Google, and other webmail providers.

The indictment says that Dokuchaev and Sushchin paid, directed, and protected two known criminal hackers who took part in the scheme—Alexsey Belan, a Russian national and resident, and Karim Baratov, born in Kazakhstan and a naturalized Canadian citizen and resident. Belan, who has been indicted twice in the U.S. in the past for cyber-related crimes, is currently on the FBI’s Cyber’s Most Wanted list and is the subject of a Red Notice for Interpol nations, which includes Russia.