Security News > 2018 > March > Prague Extradites Russian Hacker to US for Alleged Cyberattacks

The Czech Republic on Friday said it had extradited a Russian hacker to the United States where he is wanted for alleged cyberattacks on social networks. Yevgeni Nikulin, who is also sought by his native Russsia on fraud charges, had been in a Prague prison since he was arrested in the Czech capital in 2016 in a joint operation with the FBI. The case comes amid accusations by Washington that Russia tried to "interfere" through hacking in the 2016 US election won by Donald Trump, charges the Kremlin has dismissed. The Czech justice ministry "confirms the extradition of Russian citizen Y. Nikulin to the United States," ministry spokeswoman Tereza Schejbalova said on Twitter. The extradition "took place overnight," she added. A US government plane left Prague soon after midnight Thursday and landed nine hours later near Washington, according to the website flightaware.com. Following Nikulin's arrest, Moscow accused Washington of harassing its citizens and vowed to fight Nikulin's extradition. It then issued a separate arrest warrant for him over alleged theft from the WebMoney settlement system. The US has charged Nikulin with hacking into social networks LinkedIn and Formspring and into the file hosting service Dropbox, Nikulin's lawyer Martin Sadilek told AFP at the time. He also said Nikulin alleges that FBI investigators had tried twice to persuade him to confess to cyberattacks on the US Democratic Party. Last year, a Prague court ruled that Nikulin could be extradited to either Russia or the United States, with the final say left to the Czech justice minister. (function() { var po = document.createElement("script"); po.type = "text/javascript"; po.async = true; po.src = "https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); Tweet © AFP 2018Previous Columns by AFP:Prague Extradites Russian Hacker to US for Alleged CyberattacksForeign Companies in China Brace for VPN CrackdownUnder Armour Says 150 Million Affected in Data BreachFacebook Announces New Steps to Protect Users' PrivacyPink-haired Whistleblower at Heart of Facebook Scandal 2018 ICS Cyber Security Conference | Singapore [April. 24-26] Register for the 2018 CISO Forum at Half Moon Bay 2018 ICS Cyber Security Conference | USA [Oct. 22-25] sponsored links Tags: NEWS & INDUSTRY Tracking & Law Enforcement Cybercrime

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