Cybersecurity
The Luxury Car Buff at the Center of the Yahoo Hack
- Mortgage paid off and expensive rides raised questions
- Karim Baratov, 22, liked to work out and do pencil drawings
When Karim Baratov said on Facebook he’d paid off a mortgage and drove a BMW 7 series at high school, classmates thought he had rich parents. The money may have come, instead, from a secret life as a cyber hacker, including work for Russia’s top spy agency.
The U.S. government indicted four people Wednesday for allegedly hacking Yahoo! Inc. accounts for the Russian government. Baratov, a Canadian born in Kazakhstan who is 22 years old now, is the only one likely to see trial.