18 U.S.C. § 371
Conspiracy to Commit Offense or Defraud the United States
Key Facts
- Statutory Citation: 18 U.S.C. § 371.
- Official Offense: Conspiracy to Commit Offense or Defraud the United States.
- Jurisdiction: United States (Federal).
- Correlated across 8 primary case matters in this library.
Prosecutorial Elements in Cyber Cases
Charged in state-sponsored espionage, sanctions evasion, and multi-defendant federal computer fraud cases requiring an agreement plus at least one overt act.
Statutory Sentencing Exposure
Up to 5 years federal imprisonment plus fines and restitution per conspiracy count.
Representative Prosecution Cases (8)
U.S. v. Baratov et al. (Yahoo 2014 Breach / FSB Officers)
Conspiracy between Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers and criminal hackers to breach Yahoo's network, compromising 500 million user accounts to conduct espionage against journalists, government officials, and commercial executives.
U.S. v. Sun Kailiang et al. (PLA Unit 61398 / APT1)
Historic first-ever criminal indictment against state military actors: five Chinese military officers in People's Liberation Army Unit 61398 charged with cyber espionage against Westinghouse, U.S. Steel, Alcoa, and the United Steelworkers union.
U.S. v. Netyksho et al. (APT28 / GRU Unit 26165 DNC Hack)
Twelve Russian GRU military intelligence officers charged with hacking into the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton presidential campaign servers, exfiltrating emails, and orchestrating strategic leaks via DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0.
U.S. & International Action: Dmitry Badin (German Bundestag Hack)
Russian GRU military officer charged with the 2015 cyber intrusion into the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag), which compromised parliamentary IT infrastructure and exfiltrated thousands of emails from Chancellor Angela Merkel's office.
U.S. v. Wu et al. (Equifax PLA Unit 54th Research Institute)
Four military officers with the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) 54th Research Institute charged with hacking into Equifax networks, stealing trade secrets, and exfiltrating personally identifiable information (PII) of roughly 147 million American citizens.
State of Florida v. Graham Ivan Clark (Twitter VIP Bitcoin Hijack)
17-year-old hacker orchestrated a spearphishing and social engineering scheme targeting Twitter employees, gaining access to internal administrative customer service tools and hijacking 130 high-profile verified accounts (including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple) to promote a fraudulent Bitcoin giveaway.
Marriott Starwood 383 Million Guest Reservation Breach
State-sponsored cyber espionage operators maintained undetected access to the Starwood guest reservation database for four years, deploying remote access trojans and memory scrapers to exfiltrate unencrypted passport numbers, payment cards, and travel itineraries.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise M365 Email Breach (Midnight Blizzard)
State-sponsored cyber espionage campaign conducted by Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) unit Midnight Blizzard (APT29) infiltrating Hewlett Packard Enterprise cloud-hosted Microsoft Office 365 environment, accessing executive leadership and cybersecurity correspondence, disclosed under SEC Form 8-K filings.