From: InfoSec News (isnC4I.ORG)
Date: Wed Apr 11 2001 - 01:17:30 CDT

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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/04/11/013.html

By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer
Wednesday, Apr. 11, 2001

The Federal Security Service said Tuesday that intelligence officers
at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow tried to recruit a young Russian hacker
to try to break into its computer network.

While declining to provide details, an FSB officer confirmed a report
by the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper Tuesday that said the
20-year-old hacker was offered $10,000 to hack into the FSB network in
January, but he changed his mind after a sleepless night and turned
himself in.

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the allegation.

The alleged recruitment attempt comes as Russia and the United States
are embroiled in a spying scandal that kicked off in February when the
FBI charged veteran agent Robert Philip Hanssen with spying for
Russia. Then in March, the United States threatened to expel 50
Russian diplomats for espionage. Russia said it would respond in kind.

Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that two officers in the U.S. Embassy's
security service Bartle Burks Gorman and John Fowler Conners and two
FBI agents Harry Allen Dixon and Michael Pishchimuka tried to recruit
the student, who was identified only as Vers. MK published the
Americans' names in Russian, and their spelling in English could not
immediately be confirmed.

MK said Vers met the four Americans through retired U.S. Air Force
Colonel William Smith in North America whom he met on the Internet a
year and a half ago. Coincidentally, a man named William Smith also
works in the U.S. Embassy's Defense Threat Reduction Office, MK
reported.

Vers boasted in e-mail exchanges with Smith that he had tried to hack
sites such as those belonging to the FBI and IBM. Then after the new
year, Vers told Smith he needed cash and wanted to travel to the
United States to make use of his hacking skills.

Smith replied that Vers should contact an official at the U.S. Embassy
who would tell him what to do. Vers and embassy officials met three
times between Jan. 16 and 23. The Americans then offered Vers "a
secret cooperation in the interests of American secret services
against the Russian Federation," MK quoted the hacker's confession to
the FSB as saying.

Two days later, Vers got a message on his cellphone to hack the FSB's
network within two weeks and retrieve and delete a list of unnamed
files. He was also asked to recruit other hackers to attack the FSB's
network, MK said.

The Americans offered $10,000 for his assistance.

Vers spent a sleepless night after getting the instructions and went
the next day to the FSB headquarters to confess.

MK said the FSB released Vers after debriefing him because the law
doesn't require that charges be brought against those who confess to
conspiracy of espionage before getting caught.

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