Microsoft’s former senior architect, Alex Kibkalo, was arrested on Wednesday after he was allegedly charged with stealing the software maker’s trade secrets and passing them over to a blogger in France.
The ex-software architect during the investigation admitted to Microsoft’s investigators that he provided company’s confidential documents and information to the blogger.
Investigators accused Kibkalo of leaking Windows 7 program files, as well as information about an internal system meant to protect against software piracy.
According to Microsoft’s investigation, Kibkalo “uploaded proprietary software including prerelease software updates for Windows 8 RT and ARM devices, as well as the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit (SDK) to a computer in Redmond, Washington, and subsequently to his personal Windows Live SkyDrive account.”
The unidentified French blogger was known for posting screenshots of pre-release version of the Windows Operating System in the Microsoft blogging community.
The blogger hid his identity and used a nickname online to protect his original identity. An e-mail from Kibkalo was found within the blogger’s Hotmail account, establishing that he shared confidential data.
Kibkalo, who worked with Microsoft for seven years, was reportedly motivated to leak the software after receiving a poor performance review at Microsoft in 2012.
A Microsoft spokesman, in an emailed statement to Reuters, said: “We take protection of our intellectual property very seriously, including cooperating with law-enforcement agencies who are investigating potential criminal actions by our employees or others.”
