Former Microsoft senior architect Alex Kibkalo has been arrested after passing trade secrets related to Windows 8 OS, US court documents showed.
The Russian national when working at Microsoft’s Lebanon office has confessed to Microsoft investigators that he passed on details to a technology blogger in France.
A complaint filed in the US District Court stated that the blogger had uploaded pre-release versions of the Windows Operating System.
According to an internal investigation carried out by Microsoft, there had been illegal spread of proprietary and confidential trade secrets in July and August 2012, while an email from Kibkalo within the alleged blogger’s Hotmail account confirming that he shared top secret data.
The complaint also noted that Kibkalo worked for Microsoft for seven years, and in 2012 he received ‘a poor performance review and threatened to resign if the review was not amended,’ prior to his exit from the company.
A Microsoft spokesman said in a statement: "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."
