The Moscow City Court on Wednesday sentenced two members of the infamous hacking group Shaltay-Boltay, also known as the Anonymous International and "Humpty Dumpty." Alexander Filinov and Konstantin Teplyakov of the group will have to serve three years in prison according to the Russian media.
"Members of the AI were found guilty under Art. 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Illegal Access to Information protected by law)," CrimeRussia reported. "They hacked e-mail and messengers of civil servants and public persons, and then sold some of the data to interested persons, and something was shared."
Teplyakov and Filinov are believed to be behind high-profile hacks, with the targets including the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov and presidential advisor Andrei Belousov. They were found guilty of "gaining unlawful access to computer information" after a closed secret trial, the Moscow city court said in a statement.
The group had claimed credit for breaking into the Twitter account of Medvedev in 2014. They had also told the media that the group had sold hacked data to the highest bidder after leaking embarrassing official emails. The FSB is currently looking into the buyers of that information sold by the hackers.
Earlier in the year, Shaltay-Boltay leader Vladimir Anikeyev was jailed for two years after pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the authorities. He has said that some of the data posted on the internet was falsified. Another member of the group, Alexander Glazastikov, reportedly managed to escape abroad.
The investigation into Shaltay-Boltay started in October 2016 amid allegations of Russia trying to influence the 2016 US Presidential election. During the same time, the Kremlin was also investigating into the FSB as several high-profile officials were accused of treason, including FSB's cybersecurity head Colonel Sergey Mikhailov. While it sparked rumors that these incidents were somehow linked, so far there hasn't been any official comment on such a connection.
