A Russian man whom US prosecutors say beforehand labored for Russia’s FSB intelligence company pleaded not responsible on Thursday to a cost that he participated in a cyber espionage marketing campaign {that a} know-how firm performed towards Western organizations.
Denis Obrezko, who was extradited final month from Thailand following his arrest there in November, pleaded not responsible throughout a quick digital listening to earlier than a federal Justice of the Peace decide in Boston after being indicted earlier this week for conspiring to commit laptop fraud and abuse.
The 36-year-old was charged over what the indictment alleges was a Russian government-linked cyber espionage marketing campaign that focused US and European firms, NATO-aligned European authorities companies, and organizations supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion.
The indictment mentioned cybersecurity researchers tracked the hacking operations, which had been dubbed “Void Blizzard” and “Laundry Bear,” the identical names that Microsoft and Dutch intelligence companies cited in Might 2025 when describing a newly recognized Russian cyber group.
Obrezko faces a most sentence of 10 years in jail if convicted.
His lawyer, Max Nemtsev, in an e-mail mentioned he plans “to vigorously contest the fees on each factual and authorized grounds.”
Based on the indictment, Obrezko had labored at Russia’s Federal Safety Service, the home intelligence and safety company generally known as the FSB, from 2012 to 2017 earlier than becoming a member of know-how agency Yutek-NN, the place he was a deputy director.
The indictment mentioned that the corporate performed cyber espionage campaigns on the behest of the Russian authorities.
Yutek couldn’t be reached for remark.
The indictment mentioned Obrezko and different staff and associates of Yutek conspired since no less than 2023 to extract e-mail and different knowledge from firms’ techniques utilizing instruments like pretend domains, VPNs and proxy servers.
Victims included a social media community; a US growth firm; a cloud software program firm; and a US-based academic establishment.
Court docket filings say the FBI has recognized no less than 11 US firms which were hacked, a quantity it believes to be only a fraction of Void Blizzard’s victims.
Based on the indictment, Obrezko’s cellphone additionally saved a file containing AI-generated summaries of greater than 13,000 stolen emails from members of an Japanese European parliament.
After Microsoft in Might 2025 revealed a report detailing the actions of Void Blizzard, Obrezko corresponded with an unnamed co-conspirator who glided by the alias “Ethan Hunt,” the identical identify because the character Tom Cruise performs within the “Mission: Inconceivable” film franchise, the indictment mentioned.
