Burning Chrome...

Greg Farrell:

Former Goldman employee accused of cyber-theft: Law enforcement officials in the US arrested a former Goldman Sachs employee over the July 4 holiday weekend, accusing him of stealing sensitive automated trading codes and uploading them to a server based in Germany. Sergey Aleynikov, a computer programmer who joined Goldman in May 2007 and resigned last month, was arrested late Friday as he disembarked from a flight at Newark International Airport and charged the next day with theft of trade secrets and transfer of stolen property.

According to an affidavit filed by a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in the matter, Mr Aleynikov – who held the title of vice-president at Goldman before leaving June 5 – was part of a team that developed and improved the software codes used in the firm’s computerised trading programs. Mr Aleynikov was bound by Goldman’s standard confidentiality agreements. The FBI affidavit alleges Mr Aleynikov, after accepting the offer from his new firm – which has yet to be identified – downloaded approximately 32 megabytes of proprietary trading platform data from his desktop computer at work as well as his laptop at home on four separate occasions between June 1 and June 5, his last day at Goldman.