Czech authorities arrest Russian man allegedly linked to LinkedIn hack

Czech authorities have arrested a Russian man, who, US officials and LinkedIn believe stole personal information of millions of users of the professional social network.

The man, identified as Yevginy Nikulin by law enforcement officials on Wednesday, was arrested at a Prague hotel on 5 October on charges stemming from the 2012 data breach.

The theft did not come to light until this spring, when a hacker claimed to have obtained over 100 million LinkedIn login names and passwords, or about a quarter of the  company's user base. After confirming the breach in May LinkedIn reset passwords of affected users.

The company cooperated with the FBI to track down the suspect, saying that it was thankful for the FBI's efforts ''to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity."

The FBI in a statement, confirmed the arrest of "a Russian citizen suspected of conducting criminal activities targeting U.S. interests," though the bureau declined to comment further.

The case had nothing to do with recent hacks of the Democratic National Committee or other political organisations that the Obama administration alleged were orchestrated by the Russian government, according to one US law enforcement official.

He added the hack of LinkedIn was fairly typical of the types of cybercrimes the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies had investigated in recent years.

Cyber security experts do not believe such investigations and the filing of charges against foreign nationals could lead to much.

Definitive identification of culprits was a difficult proposition as hackers often routed their attacks through computers around the world, which made it difficult to trace the digital trail. Also extradition of suspects was often difficult when dealing with Russian and Chinese authorities.

A Russian official was reported as saying on Wednesday that the detained suspect should be returned to Russia.