Suspect in Yahoo Breach Pleads Not Guilty

A 22-year-old defendant charged for his alleged role in the infamous Yahoo data breach pleaded not guilty today to a 47-count indictment before a federal district court judge in San Francisco, according to media reports.

Karim Baratov is one of four defendants charged with computer intrusion, economic espionage, and conspiracy relating to the Yahoo cyberattack, according to a report in The Daily Beast. The other three defendants are Russian nationals and remain at large, one of which is Igor Sushchin, an undercover Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent, while the other two are Dmitry Dokuchaev, a former FSB officer who was arrested by the FSB for treason, and Alexsey Belan, a well-known Russian hacker, the report said.

On Friday, Baratov, a Canadian and Kazakh national, was in Canada where he waived his extradition hearing in a move to get his case heard quickly in US courts. During his US court appearance, another hearing was set for Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Last March, Baratov was arrested in Canada for his role in the 2014 Yahoo data breach, which affected approximately 500 million Yahoo accounts. He allegedly was asked by FSB representatives to target 80 individuals with spearphishing campaigns if their emails were not among the hundreds in the Yahoo batch, and deliver the non-Yahoo email account passwords to Russian handlers, according to The Daily Beast.

Read more about the case here.