Russian citizen arrested for Tesla factory cyber attack plot – report

A Russian citizen working at Tesla's Nevada "gigafactory" has been arrested after his alleged plot to attack the plant's computer system was intercepted by an FBI sting operation, according to website Teslarati.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has since confirmed the car company was at the centre of a planned cyber attack.

The US Department of Justice announced the arrest of 27-year old Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov last week.

It's understood he approached another Tesla factory worker with the plan to infiltrate the company's cyber defences.

After holidaying together, Kriuchkov allegedly offered a colleague US$1 million (AU$1.36M) for their help in carrying out the cyber attack. The unnamed Tesla employee then advised the car company, which made contact with the FBI.

It's alleged Kriuchkov asked the employee to plant malicious software on Tesla's internal IT system, allowing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, effectively shutting down the factory and grinding production to a halt.

Kriuchkov has been detained and is awaiting trial.

MORE: Everything Tesla