Former Microsoft employee arrested for leaking Windows 8

Wind8Apps reports Alex Kibkalo, an ex-Microsoft employee, has been arrested for leaking Windows 8 builds. He stands accused of leaking early Windows 8 builds to a French tech blogger with whom he was communicating via a forum. According to the report, Kibkalo leaked Windows 8 code in mid-2012 because he was angry over a poor performance review. Besides Windows 8, Kibkalo also leaked some Windows 7 program files and parts of Microsoft's Activation Server Software Development Kit, and encouraged the tech blogger to share the development kit online so that hackers could use it to crack Microsoft's software.

The accused got caught because the French blogger had contacted Microsoft to verify the Windows 8 code Kibkalo sent. After realizing that they were dealing with an authentic product, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Investigations tried to track him down and then looked through his Hotmail account where they found incriminating emails and chat logs. Here’s how a chat session between Kibkalo and the blogger looks like:

“I would leak enterprise today probably,” Kibkalo told the blogger during an Aug. 2, 2012 exchange, according to charging papers.microsoft employee windows 8 trade secrets

“Hmm,” the blogger replied. “Are you sure you want to do that? Lol.”

Told the leak would be “pretty illegal,” Kibkalo is alleged to have responded “I know ”