Accusing Russian nationals in 2014 Yahoo data breach may well be an attempt to divert global attention from "important issues" like the recent publication of classified documents by WikiLeaks, Zakharova supposed.
"I am more than sure that [it is so], taking into account that in [European countries] are doing everything possible to prevent the media from further discussing the latest revelations made by WikiLeaks," Zakharova said. "In these [leaked] documents, there are very unpleasant facts about these countries, especially about cyber security, cyber crimes even."
"I cannot dismiss the possibility that this also has to do with the proverbial "Russian hackers" and theit meddling in the political in-fighting in the US. You'd think we're being trained here to become hackers [en masse]," Zakharova said, jokingly alluding to the increasing number of claims voiced in the US about cyber security threat allegedly posed by Russia.
On September 22, Yahoo announced that a state-sponsored actor hacked its networks in late 2014, stealing information from about 500 million users, including their contact information, passwords and birth dates. The hackers targeted the accounts of Russian and US government officials, Russian journalists, and private-sector employees of financial, transportation, and other companies. The cybercrime is considered one of the largest data breaches in history.
The indictment marks the first US criminal cyber charges against Russian officials in history.
