United States Vs Yevgeniy Nikulin
A Russian man named Yevgeniy Nikulin aged 32 is convicted for hacking LinkedIn and Dropbox and the defunct social media site Formspring and stealing logins of 117 million users in 2012.
Making it one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history.
Both LinkedIn and Dropbox are very important applications, LinkedIn helps us to get an insight into corporate affairs and environment whereas Dropbox helps us in providing extra cloud space which is extremely helpful for us to store our important information.
Prosecutor said that while in Moscow, Nikulin hacked into the company’s computers and installed malware i.e. it is a collective name for the number of malicious software variants like ransomware, viruses, and spyware. Malware mainly consists of code developed by cyberattackers, designed to cause extensive damage to data and gain unauthorized access to the network.
He was arrested while traveling in the Czech Republic in 2016 and extradited to the U.S.
The trial started early in the March but was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and a Shelter-in-place order for the bay area on March 16, when almost all in-person court hearing was postponed nationwide.
Making this case the first trial in Northern California since the coronavirus pandemic shut down the Bay Area in mid-March.
Nikulin was scheduled to be sentenced on September 29. The justice department said he faces as long as 10 years in prison for each count of selling stolen is usernames and passwords, installing malware on protected computers and as many as five years for each count of conspiracy and computer hacking and a mandatory two years sentence for identity theft.
After the six-day trial, Nikulin was booked under violation of 18 U.S.C section 1030(a)(2)(C); two counts of intentional transmission of information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 1030(a)(5)(A); two counts of aggravated identify theft; in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 1028A(a)(1); one count of trafficking in unauthorized access drive, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 1029 (a)(2); one count of conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 371.
Hence received a sentence of 88 months.
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