Owners of current Microsoft products have nothing to worry about, according to the company, but the break-in may make future products more vulnerable to attacks. The circumstances of the break-in are, right now, mysterious. Oliver Roll, senior director of Microsoft in the United Kingdom, said he didn't know who had broken in, or why. Microsoft wouldn't comment on which future products were affected. Competitors could theoretically use the code to steal features from the new products, and malicious hackers could use it to design viruses or other programs that exploit unpublicized security flaws.
Industrial espionage takes many forms.
The Wall Street Journal reported in today's editions that Microsoft passwords had been sent to St. Petersburg, Russia. Microsoft declined to comment on that report. Not Competitors Computer experts said the code wouldn't be of much use to competitors. It's just too high-profile. Anyone trying to blackmail Microsoft, to sell illegal copies or to use parts of the code in their own products would probably get run to ground by Microsoft and the FBI, said Graham Cluley of British antivirus company Sophos.