A Russian hacker has been indicted by the US authorities for cyber attacks against LinkedIn and others which may have compromised close to 200 million online accounts.
Yevgeniy Nikulin, 29, of Moscow, is currently being detained under arrest in Prague after Czech police received an alert from Interpol earlier this month, according to reports.
Now the US Department of Justice has unsealed an indictment which alleges that he hacked LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring and obtained information.
It continued:
“According to the indictment, the defendant also caused damage to computers belonging to a LinkedIn employee and to Formspring by transmitting a program, information, code, or command. Nikulin also is alleged to have used the credentials of LinkedIn and Formspring employees in connection with the computer intrusions. Further, Nikulin is alleged to have engaged in a conspiracy with unnamed co-conspirators to traffic stolen Formspring user credentials.”
Nikulin has been charged with a total of three counts of computer intrusion; two of aggravated identity theft; two of intentional transmission of info, code or command “causing damage to a protected computer”; one count of conspiracy; and one count of trafficking in unauthorized access devices.
The charges relate to attacks back in 2012 which initially were thought to have compromised a few million accounts.
However, earlier this year LinkedIn admitted that the breach had exposed closer to 117 million records, while Dropbox revealed a cyber heist compromised 69 million accounts.
The attack on Formspring in the same year is said to have breached 28 million user accounts.
The United States won’t have things all its own way, however, with Russia’s Foreign Ministry apparently trying to work with Prague to prevent Nikulin’s extradition.
It claimed that the arrests show Washington is “hunting for Russian citizens across the world.”