Russian programmer Alexey Kibkalo was detained in the United States. Russian programmer Alexey Kibkalo was detained in the USA. Where is Alexey Kibkalo now?

Biography

On March 31, 2014, Alexey Kibkalo, accused of stealing company trade secrets, pleaded guilty in District Court in Seattle. According to the Seattle Times, Kibkalo was able to reach an agreement with federal prosecutors under which he would spend three months in prison, as well as pay compensation to Microsoft in the amount of $22.5 thousand. The final sentencing in Kibkalo's case was scheduled for July 1, 2014.

According to the investigation, in July-August 2012, as a Microsoft employee, Kibkalo distributed through his own SkyDrive account the code for Windows 8 RT and the Microsoft Activation Server SDK toolkit, which the corporation uses for the activation system. In addition, Kibkalo handed over the code created by Microsoft for distribution to a certain French tech blogger.

The real name of the French blogger with whom Kibkalo collaborated has not yet been established. The blogger became famous in the Microsoft developer community for publishing screenshots of a version of the Windows operating system that Microsoft had not yet officially demonstrated at the time of publication.

The French blogger posted the information he received on his websites and Twitter. In addition, he was involved in selling activation keys for Windows Server on eBay. Whether he did this with the participation of Kibkalo is not specified.

According to Kibkalo's LinkedIn account, after leaving Microsoft, he worked as a product director at the American company 5nine Software, which develops information security and virtualization tools.

Later it became known that Alexey Kibkalo made a deal with the investigation and pleaded guilty to stealing Microsoft data and transferring it to a third party (a French blogger under the nickname Canouna). As a result, the punishment was commuted - the fine was reduced from $22,500 to $100. Kibkalo remained under arrest until June 19, 2014, on which day his three-month sentence expired. Then Alexey was sent to

The story of the detention in the United States of a famous Russian developer, who is suspected of divulging Microsoft trade secrets, has continued. The full text of the document filed in the Western Washington District Court in Seattle has been published. The document is dated March 17, 2014. Judge - Mary Alice Theiler.

The charge is for theft of trade secrets, specifically the Activation Server SDK, and a violation of 18 US Code Section 1832(a)(2) and (a)(4). Punishment under these articles provides for imprisonment of up to 10 years.

The investigation into the case was led by Special Agent Armando Ramirez III of the FBI's Seattle Field Office, who has eight years of FBI experience. In July 2013, Microsoft provided him with the results of an internal investigation that revealed the unauthorized transfer of proprietary and confidential trade secrets from Alexey Kibkalo to a technology blogger in France (hereinafter referred to as “the blogger”).

Among the transferred software were software updates for Windows 8 RT and ARM devices before their official release, Activation Server SDK, etc. Alexey copied all this to a server in Redmond (Washington), to his personal Windows Live SkyDrive account for easier downloading.

Because the current Internet connection on Microsoft's corporate network in Lebanon was slow and unreliable, Alexey installed a virtual machine on a Microsoft server in Redmond and used it to download "pilfered Microsoft products" to his SkyDrive account. By the way, after five years of working in the Moscow office of Microsoft, the developer himself asked to be transferred to Lebanon, and his request was granted. However, in 2012, before the events mentioned, managers assigned Alexey a low labor efficiency rating. He asked to reconsider the assessment, threatening to fire him. After refusing to reconsider the rating, the programmer submitted his resignation, and the events described occurred around this time.

The SDK was copied on August 18, 2012. Kibkalo gave the blogger a link to the pidgenxsdk.rar file from his SkyDrive account and hinted that the program should be handed over to a hacker who could reverse engineer and write a “fake activation server.”

The further course of events is described in the previous article. We only note that to correspond with the blogger, Alexey used a mailbox on mail.ru and the IM messenger Windows Live Messenger. The blogger had a Hotmail account, which the Trustworthy Computing Investigations (TWCI) security department immediately gained access to after asking permission from the company's lawyers.

In a two-day interview with security department employees on September 24, 2012, Kibkalo admitted that he transferred confidential Microsoft information to the blogger through his SkyDrive account. Among the transferred files, he named a large number of Windows 8 hotfixes, code for the PID generator (SDK), unreleased versions of the Windows Live messenger, various documents and presentations on products. In turn, the blogger, during a personal meeting with Microsoft investigators, admitted that he published information on Twitter and on his websites, and also sold Web Server activation keys on eBay.

An MSN chat history was found on the blogger’s home computer, which contained correspondence with akibkaло_at_mail.ru.

Specialization: IT Systems Architect

Summary: Recently a senior Microsoft architect responsible for virtualization technologies and projects in the MEA region (over 80 countries). Sold, designed, implemented and supported infrastructure projects for the largest organizations in Russia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Graduate of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, Candidate of Sciences. He is one of the ten most certified Microsoft specialists in the world. He has been a Microsoft trainer for about ten years, working closely with the Zvezdy and S training center. Participated in the development of many courses and exams together with Microsoft Learning. Co-author of Microsoft Press books. Founder and co-author of one of the most popular Russian-language blogs, TechNet: In the recent past, senior architect at Microsoft, responsible for technologies and virtualization projects in the MEA region (more than 80 countries).

Author's materials

It’s unlikely that anyone else needs to be convinced that Windows Server 2012 is an extremely complex and multifaceted software product. Four years and millions of man-hours were spent on its development. In order for the result to be exactly what our customers need, the development cycle necessarily includes several

On March 19, 2014, in Seattle, FBI agents detained Russian programmer Alexey Kibkalo on suspicion of disclosing Microsoft trade secrets.

A graduate of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, Candidate of Sciences Alexey Kibkalo (akibkalo) worked at Microsoft for more than 7 years (from May 2005 to September 2012), most recently holding the position of senior architect responsible for technologies and virtualization projects in the MEA region (more than 80 countries). He has repeatedly spoken at technical conferences and is well known in the IT community. He is one of the ten most certified Microsoft professionals in the world. Participated in the development of numerous courses and exams in collaboration with Microsoft Learning. Co-author of Microsoft Press books. Founder and co-author of one of the most popular Russian-language blogs on TechNet.

In 2013, Alexey Kibkalo left Microsoft for 5nine, where he coordinated the development of management and security products for Microsoft Hyper-V.

Kibkalo is accused of passing on “Microsoft trade secrets” to an unnamed French blogger for publication, including the proprietary Activation Server Software Development Kit and internal builds of Windows 8 long before the official release of this OS.

Microsoft employees told the FBI that Alexey's activities "could facilitate code reverse engineering" and bypass the Windows authentication mechanism.

A case is not brought against the blogger because he did not publish practically anything in the public domain except screenshots, and it seems that he even dissuaded Alexey from “illegal” actions. Problems arose in September 2012, when for some reason a blogger sent another Microsoft employee the Activation Server SDK code with a request to confirm its authenticity, although he could have simply sent the hash. He immediately contacted Microsoft security, and it began an investigation. After examining the blogger's Hotmail mailbox, they found a letter from Alexey Kibkalo with links to hotfixes for Windows 8. This happened long before the release of this OS, when there were only rumors about it.

By collecting logs from its servers, Microsoft was able to restore the history of IM messages between Kibkalo and the blogger. There was enough incriminating evidence in the correspondence to bring charges against the programmer. In addition, Alexey himself allegedly admitted in a conversation with Microsoft investigators that he transferred some corporate programs and documents “outside.” In September 2012, he left or was fired from Microsoft. In mid-2013, the case was transferred to the FBI, and now the story has taken a completely unpleasant turn.

In addition to disclosing trade secrets, Alexey faces charges of illegally entering Building 9 on the Microsoft campus and attempting to copy the contents of the server.

The investigation against Kibkalo was probably conducted in secret. His latest blog post on TechNet was published just a week ago. It seems that Alexey was completely immersed in his work and did not think that an investigation was underway.