Nikulin Evgeny

Nikulin Evgeny

Biography

2014: Interrogation of Nikita Kislitsin in the FBI

In 2014, the FBI detained and interrogated Nikita Kislitsin, who since 2013 worked at Group-IB as the head of the network security department. The FBI accused Kislitsin of receiving from hacker Yevgeny Nikulin a hacked database of Formspring users and selling it. After the Russian was shown an indictment against him, he replied that "prison is not an option for him." One of the reasons Kislitsin explained cooperation with the investigation was that he began working at Group-IB and could no longer "simultaneously engage in criminal activities and fight it" (the other two are children and religion).

The Russian offered to share with the FBI data on users of the FETEAM cardinal forum and methods for combating fraudsters that Group-IB was developing. The document indicates that the head of the company Ilya Sachkov gave this good. "Group-IB CEO Ilya Sachkov is aware and supported Kislitsin's proposal to share information with the FBI," the special services report said. In 2021, Sachkov was arrested on charges of treason.

Kislitsin refused the services of a lawyer and told the investigation everything he knew about the Russian hackers, whom in subsequent years the US authorities began to pursue. In particular, Kislitsin testified against Yevgeny Nikulin, Alexei Belan (included in the US sanctions list for hacking Yahoo) and Dmitry Dokuchaev (former FSB major, sentenced to 6 years in Russia for transmitting data about Russian hackers to the United States, released on parole).

2016: Detention in the Czech Republic

Nikulin was detained at the request of the United States by Czech law enforcement agencies, acting together with representatives of the FBI, in October 2016 in one of the hotels in Prague.

In November 2017, the Czech Supreme Court confirmed the possibility of extraditing a Russian to the US authorities. Subsequently, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic removed all obstacles to Nikulin's extradition, rejecting his complaint. As a result, at the end of March 2018, Nikulin first appeared in an American court, refusing to plead guilty.

2020:7 years in prison for cyber attacks on large IT companies

At the end of September 2020, the Federal Court of the Northern District of California sentenced Russian Yevgeny Nikulin, found guilty of cybercrime, to seven years and four months in prison.

Nikulin has already spent almost four years in custody. This means that in fact he tries less than half of his sentence in prison. Courthouse News Service notes that the judge may have issued a lighter sentence, because Nikulin left a 10-year-old daughter in Russia, and her mother may not live to see her son return - she underwent four spinal surgeries and three strokes. The prosecutor's office demanded for the Russian programmer almost 12 years in prison.

Nikulin was accused in the United States of hacking the social network LinkedIn and Dropbox servers, as well as stealing more than 100 million user logins and passwords that he tried to sell on the Internet. During the court hearing, he pleaded guilty to all nine counts.

I think you're a brilliant guy. I urge you to use your talent in a legitimate profession and do something good in your life instead of hacking computers, "said Judge William Alsap, sentencing Nikulin.

The Russian Embassy in the United States said that they "closely monitored the trial" against Nikulin.

We are in constant contact with him and his lawyer. We provide our compatriot with the necessary consular and legal assistance, "the diplomatic mission said on Twitter.[1]

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