Yevgeniy Alexandrovich Nikulin (Евгений Александрович Никулин) is a Russian computer

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

. He was arrested in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in October 2016, and was charged with the hacking and data theft of several U.S. technology companies. In September 2020, he was sentenced to 88 months in prison.

Hacking career

In 2012, Nikulin was alleged to be part of a criminal clique involving a Ukrainian national, Oleksandr Ieremenko.

Arrest

Czech police arrested Nikulin in Prague on October 5, 2016, in connection with the 2012 hacking and data theft of

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropbox w ...

, and

Formspring Spring.me was a social networking service. Until a rebranding in 2013, it was known as Formspring, a question-and-answer-based social network launched in 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack. As of August 1, 2015, t ...

. According to a report by

TV Rain TV Rain ( rus, Дождь, Dozhd, p=ˈdoʂtʲ, a=Ru-дождь (doʂtʲ).ogg; stylized as ДО///ДЬ) is an independent Russian-language television channel. Launched in Russia in 2010, it has been based in the Netherlands since 2022. It focuse ...

, his arrest may have been the result of a cooperative effort between the U.S. and Sergei Mikhailov (FSB). U.S. authorities had previously been tipped off about Nikulin in April 2014.

Detention

On November 23, 2016, Russia requested Nikulin's extradition, citing a 2009 case that involved theft from the online payment system

WebMoney WebMoney is an online payment settlement system established in Russia in 1998. It is one of the largest electronic payments processors in Russia by number of users, with the company reporting 45 million registered accounts and 300,000 active we ...

. On February 7, 2017, a lawyer for Nikulin claimed that in mid-November 2016, as well as earlier that day, an FBI agent had visited Nikulin in

Pankrác Prison Pankrác Prison, officially Prague Pankrác Remand Prison (), is a prison in Prague, Czech Republic. A part of the Czech Prison Service, it is located southeast of Prague city centre in Pankrác, not far from Pražského povstání metro stati ...

and had offered him cash, an apartment, U.S. citizenship, as well as all cyber charges against him dropped, if he would agree to confess to participating in the

2016 Democratic National Committee email leak The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails Democratic National Committee cyber attacks, stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are allege ...

. In late March 2018,

Paul Ryan Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American politician who served as the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the ...

visited the Czech capital, where he urged authorities to grant Nikulin's extradition to the U.S.

Extradition

On March 30, 2018, Nikulin was extradited to the U.S., where he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Conviction

On July 10, 2020, Nikulin was convicted by a jury in a United States District Court in San Francisco on all but one of the counts.

Sentencing

On September 29, 2020, Nikulin was sentenced to 88 months in prison.

Controversy

Bryan Paarmaan, who was the then-

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

Deputy Assistant Director in the International Operations Division, admitted to leaking details of Nikulin's indictment to

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

reporter, Del Quentin Wilber, two days before Nikulin's indictment was unsealed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nikulin, Yevgeniy Alexandrovich 1987 births Living people Hackers Hacking in the 2010s Russian cybercriminals 21st-century Russian criminals