Alex Kibkalo, a former employee of Microsoft Corp, was charged with stealing the trade secrets of Microsoft and providing them to a French blogger, Bloomberg News reported.
Court documents in a Seattle federal court showed that the Russian national who was with Microsoft for seven years was apprehended yesterday and held without bail for stealing trade secrets, one of which was a program code designed to safeguard against copyright infringement. Court filings showed that Kibkalo admitted to leaking the private information to the blogger in France. US prosecutors filed the criminal complaint, the report said.
An individual, who asked that his identity be withheld informed Microsoft about the incident in 2012. The French blogger had gotten in touch with the informant and asked for help in reviewing the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit code which was meant for the software maker's internal use. According to US prosecutors, an internal probe done in Microsoft was able to determine that the information came from Kibkalo who has been working for another US tech firm since his return to Russia, the report said.
Microsoft looked into the Hotmail account of the French blogger as part of its investigation. The criminal complaint said they were able to find email messages coming from Kibkalo containing "hot fixes" for Windows 8 mobile devices that were not yet released to the public, the report said.
In a statement, Microsoft said their terms of service allowed them to access the blogger's account. The statement said, "While Microsoft's terms of service make clear our permission for this type of review, this happens only in the most exceptional circumstances. We apply a rigorous process before reviewing such content."
In a February study, the Center for Responsible Enterprise & Trade published a study which revealed that there were five categories of those who would misappropriate trade secrets. These were the malicious insiders, nation states, competitors, transnational organized crime and hactavists, the report said.
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