Recently, the Russian hacker was sentenced for 2012 data theft of LinkedIn, Dropbox users. The hacker, Yevgeniy Nikulin, 32, was charged for stealing all the personal data and information of more than 100 million users and was convicted to more than seven years in the federal court in San Francisco.
In 2016, Nikulin was snatched off the roads of Prague, and there he spent nearly two years expecting extradition to the U.S. to meet the nine criminal counts of computer intrusion, causing harm to a shielded computer, complicated identity theft, trafficking, and intrigue.
However, the jury sentenced him to all calculations of his crimes in July, but it was affirmed that the government doesn’t offer sufficient evidence against Nikulin. And it was not totally proved that he committed the Dropbox and Formspring hacks for economic gain.
Not only this but one of the prosecutors asserted that in 2012, Nikulin was serving from Moscow, and he hacked the computers of the San Francisco Bay Area businesses, and installed malware, stolen all login credentials of employees, and employed those credentials to obtain customer data like as usernames and passwords, later he offered them for sale on a Russian-speaking cybercrime conference.
Nikulin’s convictions break down to 64 months on calculations two, six, and eight associated with trafficking in illegal access devices and producing harm to a guarded computer. And 60 months for counts one, four, five, and seven associated with the computer intrusion and conspiracy, and these will all be served concurrently.
Moreover, Nikulin will also serve 24 months for intensified identity theft. Nechay’s co-counsel Adam Gasner affirmed that the companies, especially LinkedIn, considerably exaggerated their financial declines in rectifying the attacks.
Apart from this, Alsup agreed by saying LinkedIn’s loss calculation was “possibly fabricated,” but still, nobody can deny that all three companies suffered substantial damages.
The prosecutor affirmed in his report that Nikulin had decreased LinkedIn’s compensation from the $2 million to $1 million. And Dropbox was granted $514,000 and Formspring $20,000. That’s why Gasner said Nikulin would not serve the full 88 months as he will get an account for the time he will serve.
Nikulin was also sentenced for hacking into Formspring, a social networking service that was closed in 2013, and Automattic, the progenitor company of WordPress. However, the U.S. Attorney’s office stated in one of their statement that there was no clear evidence that will prove that Nikulin has stolen anything from Automattic.
So, after a six-days of hearing, Nikulin was sentenced for trading all stolen usernames and passwords, installing malware on guarded computers, and computer intrusion and intensified identity theft.
Also Read:
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