Security News > 2020 > July > Guilty: Russian miscreant who hacked LinkedIn, Dropbox, Formspring, stole 200-million-plus account records

The Russian hacker accused of raiding LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring, and obtaining data on 213 million user accounts, has been found guilty.

The jury reckoned Nikulin probably swiped the LinkedIn account details, all 117 million of them, for commercial gain, though they didn't think greed played a role in his theft of 28 million account records from Formspring and 68 million from Dropbox.

Much of the case rested on persuading the jury that various pseudonyms used by the hacker were Nikulin.

Despite the unanimous jury decision, it was far from certain Nikulin would be found guilty, with district judge William Alsup repeatedly criticizing the prosecution's case, at one point calling it "Gobbledygook," and the next day "Mumbo jumbo," as prosecutors tried to connect Nikulin to a wider hacking conspiracy.

Nikulin's defense team argued the only solid evidence connecting him to the hacker was a document provided by the Russian government whose reliability it questioned, arguing that Nikulin had been set up by the Russians, who were feeding misinformation.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/07/14/russian_hacker_guilty/