Russian national to be arraigned in Boston for cybercrime

A federal court in Boston will today arraign Vladislav Klyushin, a Russian national accused of multiple cybercrimes.

Klyushin and two coconspirators are charged with wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access to computers, among other charges.

According to the indictment, Klyushin and two other Russian nationals conspired to download financial disclosure forms from hundreds of publicly traded companies. The conspirators then used this non-public information to enrich themselves by trading securities, earning “tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits.” Tesla, from which the conspirators gained unauthorized access to quarterly financial results, is one of the companies whose data is alleged to have been compromised.

The Klyushin case is endemic of a greater cybercrime problem in the US. According to the FBI, 791,790 complaints of suspected Internet crime were reported in 2020—300,000 more than 2019—totaling more than $4.2 billion in reported losses.

While individual punishments in cases like Klyushin’s will have a short-term deterrent effect, successfully addressing cybercrime in the long-term will require new regulations like mandating businesses meet specific standards outlined in the US government’s preestablished NIST Cybersecurity Framework. At an international level, more multilateral intelligence cooperation is necessary in order to circumvent impenetrable criminal networks via non-virtual investigations.