{"id":190347,"date":"2026-02-24T16:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/treasury-sanctions-russian-firm-said-to-have-stolen-and-sold-us-cyber-tools\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T18:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T23:00:12","slug":"treasury-sanctions-russian-firm-said-to-have-stolen-and-sold-us-cyber-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/treasury-sanctions-russian-firm-said-to-have-stolen-and-sold-us-cyber-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasury sanctions Russian firm said to have stolen and sold US cyber tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Treasury sanctions Russian firm said to have stolen and sold US cyber tools<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.fcw.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/02\/treasury-sanctions-russian-firm-said-have-stolen-and-sold-us-cyber-tools\/411657\/?orefu003dng-homepage-river<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-24 16:13:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.fcw.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
\nThe Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned Russian firm Operation Zero and several affiliated individuals for allegedly buying stolen cyber tools originally developed for the U.S. government and reselling them for millions in cryptocurrency.Treasury also sanctioned the company\u2019s leader, Sergey Sergeyevich Zelenyuk, for the firm\u2019s role in allegedly acquiring the eight proprietary cybersecurity tools built by a U.S. company that were meant for use by the federal\u00a0government and select allies. The company resold the stolen tools to \u201cat least one unauthorized user,\u201d Treasury said.Operation Zero trades in cyber exploits, which include various software toolkits containing specialized code built to steal data and compromise computer systems.The sanctions against the firm and Zelenyuk run parallel with an FBI investigation into Peter Williams, a former employee of Trenchant, which is owned by defense contractor L3Harris. Williams pleaded guilty in October to selling at least eight of the company\u2019s exploits to a Russian broker whose identity was not disclosed at the time.\u00a0Treasury appears to now have identified that broker as Operation Zero. Williams \u201cstole several proprietary cyber tools from the company between 2022 and 2025 and sold them to Operation Zero in exchange for millions of dollars paid in cryptocurrencies,\u201d the department said in a statement announcing the sanctions.Zelenyuk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The U.S. also sanctioned a United Arab Emirates\u2013based affiliate, Special Technology Services, along with Zelenyuk\u2019s assistant, Marina Evgenyevna Vasanovich. The department additionally designated two individuals tied to the company \u2014 Azizjon Makhmudovich Mamashoyev and Oleg Vyacheslavovich Kucherov \u2014 who allegedly worked with Operation Zero.Kucherov, a Russian national, is notably suspected of being affiliated with the ransomware group Trickbot, whose alleged members have previously been sanctioned by both the United States and the United Kingdom.The actions are the first to be invoked under a 2023 law mandating financial penalties against parties that pilfer U.S. trade secrets.\u201cIf you steal U.S. trade secrets, we will hold you accountable,\u201d Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. \u201cTreasury will continue to work alongside the rest of the Trump administration to protect sensitive American intellectual property and safeguard our national security.\u201dStealing U.S.-built cyber exploits can grant foreign adversaries and criminal groups ready-made hacking tools they can quickly turn against government networks, defense contractors and critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

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Treasury sanctions Russian firm said to have stolen and sold US cyber tools http:\/\/www.fcw.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/02\/treasury-sanctions-russian-firm-said-have-stolen-and-sold-us-cyber-tools\/411657\/?orefu003dng-homepage-river Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.nextgov.com\/media\/img\/cd\/2026\/02\/24\/022426TreasuryNG\/open-graph.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-190347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190349,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190347\/revisions\/190349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}