Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla Inc’s factory in Nevada was a target of an attempted cybersecurity attack, which he called serious, by a Russian national.
Musk made the confirmation via a tweet.
News website Teslarati said that Tesla was the unnamed company in a statement issued by the US Department of Justice about a planned attack.
The media reported that a Tesla employee helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) thwart the attack.
The Justice Department identified the Russian national as 27-year-old Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, who was arrested and charged with conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer.
Kriuchkov attempted to recruit a Tesla employee to introduce malware into a system aimed at extracting data from the network, promising an incentive of $1 million upon doing so.
The Russian intends to use the data to force Tesla to pay a ransom.
Instead, the employee alerted the FBI, who thwarted the attack.
