14 DAY TRIAL // Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee who left the company in 2012, was arrested today after one year of investigations for allegedly leaking copies of Windows 7 and Windows 8 to the Internet.
According to a report published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Kibkalo obtained copies of Windows 7 and Windows 8, uploaded them to his personal cloud-storage account and then allowed a French blogger, who was hiding his identity online, to download all files and post information on the web.
The report states that Kibkalo, who had been working for Microsoft for a total of 7 years, “uploaded proprietary software including pre-release 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.”
What’s more, it appears that this wasn’t the first time when Kibkalo leaked information regarding Microsoft’s projects to the Internet, as he previous posted several screenshots and details on his Twitter accounts and blogs.
Unsurprisingly, before leaving the software giant in 2012, Kibkalo received a poor performance review and according to the same source, he threatened to resign “if the review was not amended.”
A conversation between the former Microsoft employee and the French blogger confirms that Kibkalo was the one behind the leaks, even though he clearly knew that it was illegal to disclose the information.
“I would leak enterprise today probably,” Kibkalo allegedly told the blogger on August 2, 2012 before providing access to Windows 8 leaks. Asked if he really wants to do this because “it’s pretty illegal,” Kibkalo briefly replied: “I know :).”
What’s more, the same conversations between the former Microsoft worker and his blogger friend show that Kibkalo was even trying to get into Building 9 in the Redmond campus and copy one of the servers, which was then supposed to be leaked to the Internet just like the previous files.
Kibkalo was arrested on Wednesday and is charged with theft of trade secrets, with the initial hearing scheduled to take place this week.
As for the French blogger himself, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Investigations, a special team created by the Redmond software giant to help track him down, managed to discover the Hotmail account he used to communicate with Kibkalo, but his identity was pretty hard to be discovered. He used false details and contact information, claiming to be in Quebec and choosing a nickname to hide his identity during the conversations.