Security News > 2020 > April > San Francisco trial of Russian bloke extradited and accused of hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox, Formspring stalls again amid pandemic lockdown

The man accused of hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox and the Formspring Q&A forum, and later selling the stolen data of hundreds of millions of users, has seen his trial disrupted a third time by the coronavirus pandemic.

At a hearing on Tuesday, Judge William Alsup again delayed the US trial of alleged Russian hacker Yevgeniy Nikulin until June 1; the third such delay since the COVID-19 virus appeared in San Francisco, where proceedings are unfolding.

As soon as he was collared, American prosecutors applied to have him extradited to the US to face nine felony counts for hacking the systems of LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring, as well as trying to break into Wordpress maker Automattic's systems, by posing as employees of each company.

The extradition took 18 months, in large part because the Russian authorities - who, it is claimed, had recruited Nikulin to assist in its own hacking efforts - put in an extradition request over a much smaller hacking charge.

With the lockdown in San Francisco now extended to the end of May, Judge Alsup is likely at the limit of what he could allow to ensure a fair trial.

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/28/linkedin_dropbox_hacking_trial/