Category Archives: Nikita Kislitsin

LinkedIn hacker Nikulin sentenced to 7 years in prison after years of legal battles

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One of the most-watched cybercrime cases in recent memory has come to a close. A U.S. judge on Tuesday sentenced Yevgeniy Nikulin to 88 months in prison, or more than seven years, in prison, capping an international legal drama that’s involved three countries over a span of eight years. Prosecutors had requested nearly 12 years in prison. A jury in California found Nikulin, now 33, guilty in July of hacking LinkedIn and Formspring in a pair of 2012 data breaches in which he stole credentials belonging to 117 million Americans. He was charged in 2016 with felony counts including computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft for stealing Americans’ usernames and passwords, then trying to sell them to other members of a Russian-speaking cybercriminal forum. “This is a hard one because when he returns [to Russia] I think he will return to being a hacker again,” Judge William Alsup said during. […]

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FSB asset introduced LinkedIn hacker, future Group-IB executive in 2012, U.S. alleges

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Attorneys are using the trial of a man who allegedly stole more than 100 million usernames and passwords from U.S. social media companies to hint at the murky, long-rumored relationships between Russian cybercriminals and the Kremlin’s intelligence agencies. Yevgeniy Nikulin, a 32-year-old St. Petersburg, Russia native, currently is on trial in San Francisco, accused of hacking into LinkedIn, Formspring and Dropbox in 2012 and obtaining 117 million users credentials. Roughly 30 million of those credentials were taken from Formspring. Prosecutors say he worked with a number of co-conspirators to gather and attempt to sell that data, including Nikita Kislitsin, who allegedly tried selling stolen Formspring data before he became an executive at Group-IB, and Alexsey Belan, a Russian man who made the introduction between Nikulin and Kislitin. In a recent filing, the government reproduced an email conversation in which, prosecutors say, Kislitsin was trying to sell the stolen Formspring data, and wanted Belan […]

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Indictment appears to name Group-IB executive in scheme to sell hacked data

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The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday unsealed a 2014 indictment that appears to accuse a current cybersecurity executive in an alleged conspiracy to sell usernames and passwords belonging to American customers of the social media company Formspring in 2012. The man identified in the indictment, Nikita Kislitsin, allegedly received data stolen from Formspring, then tried to sell that information to others. A man with the same name is currently listed as head of network security at Group-IB, a cybersecurity vendor with offices in Moscow and Singapore. CyberScoop has reached out to Group-IB to determine if Kislitsin is still an employee. The company did not provide a response as of Thursday morning, Eastern U.S. time. U.S. prosecutors have not alleged any wrongdoing by Group-IB. The Department of Justice’s office in the Northern District of California did not respond to requests for comment seeking clarification. Kistlitsin did not return messages seeking comment. Ties to @Udalite U.S. prosecutors say Nikita Kislitsin […]

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