A federal grand jury in California has indicted a Russian man accused of hacking computers of the website LinkedIn and other Internet companies, prosecutors said Friday.
Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin, 29, of Moscow was indicted Thursday on charges of computer intrusion, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy and other counts related to the hacking of computers belonging to LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring in 2012.
Related: U.S. Confident It's Blocked Russia's Hacking Paths
Nikulin, whose arrest at a Prague hotel on Oct. 5 was announced Wednesday, is accused of breaking into the computers and working with other unnamed conspirators to arrange the sale of the email addresses, user names and passwords, according to an indictment.
Nikulin is also accused of transmitting a program or code to computers at LinkedIn and Formspring which damaged the computers, according to prosecutors.
The arrest comes amid unrelated computer intrusions, allegedly by the Russian government, of Democratic party affiliated emails that U.S. intelligence officials have said is an attempt to influence the American presidential election. Russia has denied it is behind the hacks.
Related: Follow Trail of Russian Hackers, Putin's Revenge in Siberia
Nikulin is not charged or accused in the more recent cyberattacks. He was arrested on an Interpol warrant and is being held in Prauge, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said.
A Russian foreign ministry official, Konstantin Dolgov, told Russian media Thursday that his government "will be insisting that he is not extradited to the U.S."
