What the Yahoo Hack Says About Russian Spies

Former Russian domestic intelligence officer Dmitry Dokuchaev won't appear in a U.S. court to face charges related to the mass 2014 hacking of the Yahoo! Inc. user database. That's because he already sits in a Moscow jail, accused of treason. Dokuchaev's rare achievement in being wanted by both the U.S. and Russian authorities sheds light on what is widely said in the West to be "state-sponsored Russian hacking," but would more accurately be described as a combination of freelance theft and a concept known in Russian as "krysha."

Dokuchaev is a former hacker from Yekaterinburg. He was reportedly blackmailed into joining the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, after his private exploits became known to the service, but then built a successful career, rising to the rank of major. The Russian investigation appears to link him to a group called Shaltai Boltai, or Humpty Dumpty, which broke into electronic mailboxes, mostly of Russian officials and business people, obtained compromising information about them and then either sold or published it. The group's work was a combination of blackmail, competitive intelligence and public relations; Dokuchaev's alleged role was to direct the group toward particular victims and cover up its activities while pretending to investigate it.