Today, June 11, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated five Russian entities and three Russian individuals under Executive Order (E.O.) 13694, "Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities," as amended, and Section 224 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
"The United States is engaged in an ongoing effort to counter malicious actors working at the behest of the Russian Federation and its military and intelligence units to increase Russia's offensive cyber capabilities. The entities designated today have directly contributed to improving Russia's cyber and underwater capabilities through their work with the FSB and therefore jeopardize the safety and security of the United States and our allies," said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, according to the official website of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
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"The United States is committed to aggressively targeting any entity or individual working at the direction of the FSB whose work threatens the United States and will continue to utilize our sanctions authorities, including those provided under CAATSA, to counter the constantly evolving threats emanating from Russia."
Examples of Russia's malign and destabilizing cyber activities include the destructive NotPetya cyber-attack; cyber intrusions against the U.S. energy grid to potentially enable future offensive operations; and global compromises of network infrastructure devices, including routers and switches, also to potentially enable disruptive cyber-attacks.
It is also reported today's action also targets the Russian government's underwater capabilities. Russia has been active in tracking undersea communication cables, which carry the bulk of the world's telecommunications data.
Digital Security was designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for providing material and technological support to the FSB.
ERPScan and Embedi were designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, for being owned or controlled by Digital Security.
In addition, Kvant Scientific Research Institute (Kvant) was designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, and Section 224 of CAATSA for being owned or controlled by the FSB, as well as Divetechnoservices for providing material and technological support to the FSB.
Furthermore, sanctions apply to Aleksandr Lvovich Tribun, Oleg Sergeyevich Chirikov and Vladimir Yakovlevich Kaganskiy for acting for or on behalf of Divetechnoservices.
