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LinkedIn and DropBox Hacker Linked To Major BitCoin Heist, Report Says

By Debaleen Sengupta | Update Date: Oct 28, 2016 06:46 AM EDT

Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin is a 29 year old hacker hailing from Moscow, Russia, who has been arrested for a major BitCoin heist. Nikulin, who was arrested by Czech authorities at the beginning of this month has been tied to a series of hackings that took place at LinkedIn and DropBox.

Nikulin is rumored to be extradited to the USA where he could be charged with numerous crimes, including nine counts of hacking, ID theft and conspiracy against MNCs. The man was earlier able to hack into LinkedIn and DropBox after ID theft of its employees. Nikulin has been described as a successful entrepreneur and a possessor of numerous luxury cars, has taken onto bitcoin heists for profits.

Earlier, Nikulin and his fellow conspirators attempted to sell the FormSpring accounts for as less as $6000. Nikulin, also is rumored to be involved in the 2013 attack on the BitCoin exchange BitMarket.eu. As a result Nikulin forced shutdown of the BitMarket exchange by inflicting damages upon its own servers and a trading platform known as BitCoinica.

Investigation of the incident revealed an IP being traced back to Moscow, that used compromised particulars to steal 620 bitcoins worth around $400,000.

The investigation also revealed that the attacker had made an username "chinabig01" with the email address of "chinabig01@gmail.com". BitMarket.eu's owner reported that the email address didn't look like a disposable address, however it was used on different sites since 2009.

The BitCoin address to which the hacker transferred 620 bitcoins had a total transaction of 1532 bitcoins in February and March 2013, amounting to a little over $1 million. From where the extra 912 bitcoins came from remains to be discovered, however it is possible that these bitcoins came from other trading platforms.

The attacks on LinkedIn and DropBox seem to be the efforts of the same hacker, as the hacking methods, geolocation and online IDs match with the BitMarket.eu hacker. BitMarket experts have pointed out that the hacker wasn't entirely successful in covering his tracks.

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