We have an update on a prior story on a Russian Hacker who was found guilty

In an earlier blog post I talked about and linked to a Cyberscoop post about the trial of a Russian man that looked to be part of a big time hacker many years ago. I talk about what Formspring was, and talked about the other portions of the potential hacks. When running my newsify program this afternoon, we learn from Cyberscoop that this hacker was convicted, got off on one charge, and a very interesting case.

A U.S. jury has found an accused Russian hacker guilty on charges that he hacked LinkedIn and Formspring in a pair of 2012 data breaches in which he stole
credentials belinging to more than 100 million Americans.

Yevgeniy Nikulin was found guilty after just hours of deliberation, roughly eight years after he first infiltrated the U.S. social media companies in a
successful attempt to steal data about American web users. He also was found guilty of trafficking Formspring data, and damaging a computer belonging to
a Formspring employee in excess of $5,000.

The jury found Nikulin not guilty on a charge that he committed the crime for financial gain.

“Nikulin’s conviction is a direct threat to would-be hackers, wherever they may be,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said in a statement. “Computer hacking
is not just a crime, it is a direct threat to the security and privacy of Americans. American law enforcement will respond to that threat regardless of
where it originates.”

Nikulin was charged in 2016 with nine felony counts, including computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft, in connection with data breaches that
occurred in 2012 at LinkedIn and Formspring. Nikulin was accused of stealing roughly 117 million usernames and passwords, then trying to sell those credentials
to other users on Russian-language forums used primarily for cybercrime.

There’s more to this bizarre case and you can read it by reading this updated article by Jeff Stone called Russian hacker Yevgeniy Nikulin found guilty on most serious charges after years of legal wrangling and may the best man win.